so it is my intention to write a little about the book War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy which i just finished a week or so ago, but first i want to give an update on the last post.
first of all, i must say that i am a bit disappointed with the fact that i got only one response. i figured with the scandalous topic i brought up, and the fact that about half the people i alert about this blog about are in what would be considered 'adult' age range, i would get alot more controvercy. perhaps people done know about the 'comment' feature at the end of each post. if so, its not to late to put in your two sense (or is it two cents?). i am just shocked that not a single person objected to what i said. is it that everyone wholly agrees with me, or that they dont think im worth the trouble to convince me otherwise (how dramatic)? i suspect that mostly it was from a sort of apathy. perhaps you were thinking: 'there goes that crazy kid again, i hope he gets his head screwed on strait at some point', or 'at this rate, hes a lost cause' (very dramatic, i know). but yea, i would greatly appreciate if you could take them time to say something about it, and i really think that just about all of you must have something to say.
so anyway, its been like 10 days since the festival, my sister has come and gone, and i must say that i have been experiencing what i would consider a high-hangover. its a week after the equinox, and the sun is already setting at 830 at night, the weather is fantastic and i just dont seem to have the motivation to do 'unpleasant' things as much as i have all year. ive just been getting the urge to go out and enjoy the sunsets, smoke a joint, and just tune in (or tune out some might say) to the 'zone'. i have smoked 5 days or the 10 since the trip, and while that pales in comaprison to my earlier 'habbit', it certainly is alot for my most recent state of mind. ive just been wanting to sit back and smell the roses, and havnt had much appreciation for the self discipline that i was so proud of before. today is in fact an effort in getting shit done, i have my to do list action packed and time stamped. i am not giving myself any time for zoneing, although i may go watch the sunset, its just so perrty. i find it funny how quickly the nice weather and all can do away with notions of hard work and sacrifice. it pains me to admit this defeat of sorts, but i guess i would by lying to you, but mostly to myself if i did not admit it, and its always best to do this kind of thing publicly. so there it is.
and now for the War and Peace bit which i have been putting off for a while because of my recent spurt of chilling.
first off let me say taht this book is fantastic, secondly let me say that it is MADDDDD long. ive been reading this book for a good 2 months (ive read a bonch of othors in between) and after page 30 there wasnt a dull moment in it. i think that what makes this book so special is that it has it ALL. the characters encompass the bredth of the human soul (although perhaps it is very presumptuous and naive for me to say that). there is a complete abcense of black and white, there are no ultimatley good or bad characters, it is just a bunch of people swimming around in the chaos of life, each living in their own little world, trying to live out their hopes and dreams, mostly obliviious of how they fit into the grand scheme of things. i think that this has been tolstoys triumph, the novel is epic without being epic, there are no superheroes and supervillains, no orcs and elves, just normal people, trying to do what they can to be fulfill themselves and between them is laced the web of history. epic events happening completely out of the control of all of those who participate in them (despite what they may think) molding the fate of peoples and nations. tolstoy says a great deal about this, the novel is interlaced with essays regarding his theories of history.
he thinks taht history is basically what happens while we are busy making other plans. that despite all the hopes and intentions that we may have, what happens only correlates with the few wishes that happen to coincide with events. that despite the will and decrees of monarchs and generals, war and peace follows in a way taht can only be understood as the product of all the the wills or all the people that participate in any given event. he looks back at history and does not ascribe it to any particular thing, but rather states that it is the only thing that could have possibly happened, that it is impossible to think of how it could have turned out differently. i particularly agree with this notion, although as i am presenting it it seems a bit simple, but i think that there is alot of wisdom to it. it is impossible to speculate about what would be different if any particular event were to change. i like to think of it like this: you dont know how many times you have dodged death thus far, you dont know how many times you havnt beeen in a car accident. you dont know how many times that an event that you percieved (and may still percieve) as negative actually saved your life. your parents grounding you and not letting you go out where u may have been killed by a drunk driver. my example may seem a bit extreme, but the fact that it is a perfectly plausable possibility, and that there are in fact an infinite amount of them, from getting hit by a meteorite to contracting west nile virus, to winning the lottery, make it impossible, and pointless to speculate about what if. because the answer will always be, who knows u could be dead. and i dont say this in a morbid and fatalistic way, but simply acknowledging the inherant unpredictableness of life. so in this point i agree with tolstoy. whenever we look back on our life we are able to see how the events that we did not understand or were not able to put into the jigsaw puzzle were essential to our being here today. and it is this understanding that gives us the power to accept all the things that we do not understand, to accept all the 'bad' things that happen to us, because it is what happened, and it could not have turned out any other way. and if we can understand this, when we can accept all the cards we were dealt and how they played out, then i think that we are much closer to true happiness (or suicide if the inevitable present is unbearable).
another point of tolstoys is that people who appear to be in power have no real control over how things play out. that they have their intentions and those have their place in the web of fate, but that they have no more influence than anyone else. i am more inclined to disagree with him hear, or perhaps i have misinterpreted him here. i think that people who have 'power' (and the definition of power would make for another blog entry in itself) have more influence than those who dont. i think that he would say despite what truman might have wanted, the atomib bomb would have inevitably been dropped, but i dont think that you can deny that he made a decision to drop it. i think that it is unfair to humanity to rid them of the power to bring things into existence. heres what i mean, everything we see seems to be a product of another cause, it is an effect world we live in, as everything has a cause external to it. i think that the exception to this is our thoughts. i think that most of the time even our minds are governed by the laws of cause and effect, but we have the possibility to insert our own creations into that (i may be wrong, and perhaps what i see as original creations are in fact nothing more than a more complex effect, but i htink that the fact that a child essentially comes in with no causes working on his mind, despite what may be added on afterwards, there is still hope for originality.
connected with this is tolstoys notion that history as we learn it and know it is completely unrelated to the truth of events. history is written by the winners and they also make it alot more epic than it was at the time. events can only be epic in hindsight, when they happen they are just a blur, that we can neither see nor comprehend. yet when we read history, events are always portrayed as if they were directly intended to lead to those that followed, when in reality it is an inexaustable stream of intentions mixing together and giving rise to what happens.
the beauty of this book is how it is able to illustrate all of these theories/realities/aspects of life, while making a story about real people in real places and real time. there is the epic large scale 'war' aspects of life, and interwoven in them is the moment to moment 'peace' aspects that make it all up. and when we look at these together, the little things building on one another making up the lives of people and nations, we have the reality of life as we know it. and this is captured oh so beautifully by leo (yes were on first name basis).
perhaps we can see this in our own lives, i am certain we can if we really try. we are constantly hoping for things to happen, and sometimes they work out like we planned, somtimes partially, and somtimes completely different, so how much did our intentions have to do with it? we can always look back and see a complete life (relatively complete, depending on how old you are) and everything that has happened fits perfectly into that, but i dont think anyone could have predicted that theyed be where they are. perhaps you have the job you always thought u would, or u married the girl u grew up with next door, but there is now way that you could have seen the inside of your brain as it is now, you could not have predicted your reaction to unforseeen circumstances and how that makes you who u are today. this seems to be a feature of our existence, so it seems to me that it is best not to fall in love with our hopes and dreams, or at least leave them open to adjustment and adaptation to reality, or better yet, it is best to wish for what we already have, that is a foolproof method to have everything we want.
i think that the main characters in the novel are worth mentioning as they are so important to the development of the moral of the story. i think that they all epitimize some aspect of our selves, yet it is quite remarkable how human they all are, there is no 'hero' or villain. no one does things that are out of character (painfully frustrating at times). there is none of that otherworldy good or evil present in them, they are simply living, loving, and trying to be happy, jsut like the rest of us:
DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT AND INTEND ON READING THIS BOOK AS THERE MAY BE SOME PLOT SPOILERS. IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO READ THAT BEHEMOTH OF A BOOK ONLY TO ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS
Pierre Bezuhov- this is what i suppose would be considered the main character of the story, although it is hard to tell when there are hundreds and hudreds of pages where he does not appear at all, but nonetheless his life is central to the message that tolstoy conveys. pierre is the ilegitimate son of a count who inherits a fortune when his father dies. pierre is constantly plagued by a sense of hollowness, that his life is pointless. he is trying to find his way through temptation. he suffers the fate of trying to be a good person, tries do be as perfect as he can, in a tragically imperfect world. i think that this character would most closely resemble tolstoy himself, from what i know of him. a person who happens to be extremely wealthy, and understands that he is not special in any way, but taht he has inexplicably befallen his fate. he joins the masons in an attempt to find help in fulfilling his ideals, only to be let down when he realizes that most of the people are there for the high class connection and dont particularly beleive in the ideals of the brotherhood. he has a high regard for humanity, in a rather naive way. he thinks that people are fundamentally altruistic and he is often seen as a good hearted bafoon. in the end he is able to 'let go' in a way that i cannot describe, but tolstoy conveys to perfection. he is finally able to be the man he has always dreamed and it is by letting go of all his illusions of grandeur. i must say that i quite identify with pierre in many ways. he is a dreamer and an idealist, who has trouble turning thoughts into actions and manifesting the things that dwell inside him.
Prince Andrey- he is Pierre's best friend and he serves as a foil to him. he is much more sceptical about people and life in general, but he has much more ease in acting in a way that is consistent with his beliefs. all the things that pierre talks and dreams about doing andrey is able to do without much fuss. if pierre is a thinker, then andrey is much more of a doer. i think that he is somewhat similar to my sister in this regard. andrey is able to see into the heart of many issues without much trouble. he is not so naive as to beleive that men are so good, although he does the best he can. he does not expect much from other people and as with any good self fulfilling prophecy he is seldom disapointed. i would characterize him as a bit of a 'cold' person who has not seen much of the sweetness of life. his one hope for happiness, his engagement to natasha, blows up in his face when she breaks it off. this leads to a profound disdain for love and he gives up hopes for personal happiness. it is only on his deathbed that he is finally able to find peace, when is able to let himself love natasha again.
Natasha Rostov- natasha is the main female character in the story. for most of the book the was the epitome of youth and impulsiveness. she is an extremely passionate person who goes all out into whatever catches her attention. she is completely at the mercy of these impulses and one of them, the decision to break off her engament with andrey in order to mary anatole, who proposed to her practically as a joke, essentially leaves her on the verge of death and takes the passion out of her. she is finally able to find happiness by marrying pierre, settleing down, and starting a family. finding something larger than herself to take up her time allowed her the peace of mind she needed.
Elena Kuragin- helene is pierres first wife. he is seduced by her and compelled by her father to marry her, much to his regret. elena epitomizes sex appeal. she is considered one of the smartest and most charming women in russia despite the fact taht she is not especially intelligent. her presense is the most desired, her parties the most prestigious. she dominates russian 'society' mostly on account of her looks and seductive power over men.
Anatole Kuragin- Elenas brother. if there were any villains in the story it would be him, followed by his sister. despite taht they are not bad people, they are simply quite egotistical. anatole is the personification of hedonism and egoism run amok. he spends his time seducing women (ideally married women) and living off other people. he is portrayed as a fool, but extremely confident and his confidence (along with his good looks) go a long way in impressing people. he has no notion for how his actions affect other people, or even himself in the long run. hey, at least hes living in the moment. hes most impactful action is when he quickly seduces and proposes to natasha under the pretense that he is in love with her (despite the fact taht he has a secret wife in poland) while she was engaged to prince andrey. they are discovered and she is nearly ruined, although he still considers it a victory to have gotten her to ascent.
Nikolay Rostov- Natashas older brother. he is a man of honor, and he decides to join the army in the low ranks rather than use his noble birth to obtain a high status, low risk, position. throughout the story he is constantly torn between marrying his cousin sonya who he truly loves, or marrying a wealthy heiress in order to save his familys ruined fortunes. he considers it to be truly cowardly, although in the end he is able to find a wealthy heiress and truly fall in love with her and save his family in the process. he is the opposite of his father, who squandered the family fortune by being overly generous and not keeping an eye on finances.
Sonya- Nikolays beloved. she was orphaned at a young age and grew up almost as a sister to natasha in the rostov household. she feels an extreme debt to her benefactors and she is in a difficult position because the countess wants nikolay to marry a wealty heiress despite the fact taht they love eachother. she finds meaning in her life through sacrifice, mostly for the rostovs. she has a secret motive however, through her sacrifice she maintains a secret hope of making herself more and more worthy of nikolays love. when she is asked to sacrifice his engagement to her it is almost impossible for her to do, although in the end she is able to rise above.
Princess Marya- Prince Andreys sister. she has lives with her father until he dies. she is constantly psychologically and emotionally abused by him. she finds the meaning of her life in this suffering. she is able to ennoble it and glorify it. she revolves her whole life around sufferig and the notion of her being happy totally scares her, and she feels she is very undeserving. she is a genuinly good woman, who finally finds happiness in her marriage to Nikolay.
i hope that you enjoyed this, and that it wasnt too boring for those of you that read the whole thing. i hope that you all find a few months in your life to read this book. its not considered one of the best books in history for nothing.
peace
E
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Revelation
so here i am my friends, writing for the first time in a little while, and moreso, this will not just be another entry about the pimping things ive been doing (only a little). there will be some constructive thoughts i hope.
so first of all, my sister has come to visit again, she arrived the 12 and she leaves in a few days. it has been great as always to have her around. her visit has coincided with a vacation in my arabic classes so we have been able to hang out alot while she was here. she came to visit with a few friends and my friend owen was supposed to come visit, but my man didnt check his passport till the checked his bags, only to find out it had expired. i can tell you dont travel much OG, common. so yea, my sister was here with her friends and weve been doing tha do. tomorrow we are going to go to the beach, although its going to be COLD, but it should be madd fun. were going to do some hammock camping.
on the ithaca front, it seems that me nate and shane have found a house, i wont elaborate too much, since we have not signed a lease yet, although we do have a verbal agreement. it is a nice, WELL MAINTAINED house overlooking the lake, on a nice piece of property, yet still close enough to get to and from school.
so the now that the chit chat is out of the way, i will get to the heart of my story. this last weekend there was a festival, it is called El Festival del Dragon. originally it was started in the 70's by a few english families as a celebration of the coming of spring. it has evolved alot from its early beginings, now it consists of a 3 week festival in the mountains outside granada. the beauty of this festival is that it is completely guerrilla, there is not charge to get it, very little central organization, and no one really making any money off it. people bring their tents and set up little food stands, music tents, a few concerts, etc. you just walk around and there are tents everywhere, and people just chilling out without any method to the mayhem. it is quite remarkable when i compare this to the Grassroots Festival in Ithaca this summer, where it costs like $75 to go in for the weekend and you had an assigned plot and food was madd expensive. compare that to the dragon where everyone was just throwing up their tents where ever they could (for some reason people were pitching them strait up on rocks). the food was remarkably cheap considering where we were. there were people selling jewlery in stands, beer out of buckets of ice, people just waving around huge nuggets of marijuana, it was the ill spring festival. on the other hand, the festival does have its negative aspects, i feel bad for the people who live in the area who have to listen to hardcore drum and bass from like 9pm to 9am for at least 2 weeks, it can be heard a good distance away. there is also the matter of garbage and feces littering the area. part of the lack of organization is the lack of appropriate waste facilities, there were very few trash cans, and they were FULL in no time, and there were a few latrines, but in general it was just a free for all. from what i understand, the organizers pay the govt to clean up afterwards, presumably from their profits from concessions, but the river definetly looked a little mangy afterwords.
so anyway, this has all been a bit of a long wind up for me to tell you about my own experience with my sister and her two friends (although we met up with some other cats while we were there).
the main night of the whole festival when everyone comes and it is just crazy was friday night. this is the night that we planned on attending. we arrived on saturday afternoon at around 6 and walked around the grounds, saw the sights and got our bearings, as it is quite unlikely that we would be able to see anything at night. so from the moment we arrived people just started piling into it. by like 9 it was a complete grid lock as the whole festival grounds only had one enterance, and at a certain point the max capacity was reached but cars kept piling in, it was quite satisfying to be there and parked and chilling.
so let me cut to the chase. the thing that makes this festival most remarkable is that you will never be in a place with so many people doing so many drugs at the same time. it is insane, i think that 100% were doing drugs of some sort including alchohol and marijuana, but furthermore, at least 95% were doing 'harder' drugs. you could literally see a food stand that said: WINE 1 euro, BEER 1 euro, SHOTS 2 euros, ACID 10 euros, SPEED 20 euros, etc. me and cas and one of her friends decided that we were going to do some MDMA, the active ingredient in exstacy, although i felt it was safer as it didnt have all the other things they throw in it, and we got it from a friend.
so i realize at this point im going out there, i am well aware of all the people i send this blog to, and i am even more aware of the impressions that they may be making of me as they read this. i would beg you all to read with an open mind and not judge too hastily as there is much more to this than the recreational use of drugs (which i think has some merit in its own right, when not abused, as with all things).
so basically we started taking it around 9 pm and started feeling it at like 10, we spent the next 7-8 hours dancing like maniacs to the heartbeat of drum and bass. this is both the first time that i have done MDMA and the first time that i have consumed 'hard' drugs in a rave setting. how can i describe the feeling that you get when you are packed into a room just being swayed back and forth by the DJ. you can feel the energy in the room swaying back and forth, like an entity of its own. acording to Aldous Huxley, the primary function of the mind is to reduce the amount of sensory input we recieve down to what is necessary to our survival as an animal. a reducing valve, he calls it, functioning as a survival mechanism. so essentially the brain is capable of recieving a great deal more input, which is mostly useless for our survival as a species. so when we take drugs, the brain is no longer functioning as a reducing valve and is opened to new sensorum. in other words, i think that the sensations/halucinations/connections we feel while we are on drugs, are not made up in our mind, we simply cannot percieve them in our normal state of conciousness. its not so much that we are imagining things is that we are percieving other sensory mediums. like in the crowd, you could feel yourself connected to everyone else. this is similar to the experience of sitting in a drum circle (without drugs) when you start to feel the rhythm and everyone is syncing and you just stop thinking and feel the connection. i think that religious ceremonies (if the people are true beleivers) are able to generate this collective thing that everyone plugs their mind into. in a book i read about witches it refered to this as everyones aura vibrating at the same frequency, and what better to do this than music. in fact i think that it is the most effective unifier of minds. i used to think that when all the druggies would get together and just listen to crazy techno music on madd drugs that it was no good, but now i can see the reason that they do it. and while, there were many people there who i think were over doing it on the drug consumption because they were REALLY out of it, it was amazing to feel that connection with such a large number of souls. you could almost feel it breathe in and out. you could feel the crowd waiting as if on the edge of a precipice for the climax in the music. quite remarkable and enlightening really.
so i spent the whole night mostly with my sister and her friends and we were having a jolly good time. for those of you who know me well, you know that my sister is my best friend and that we are extremely close. i cannot tell you the joy of taking drugs with her. i always felt so remarkably close to her. when we would come in contact it was crazy, it was like i could feel madd quantities of electricity passing through us. i am quite certain that this was a manifestation of love that we cannot percieve in our everyday state. i felt so safe. oh how limited these silly words are in all of this. if there were more degrees of love i would say i was definetly feeling level 10 love (out of 10). this is not the only time i have been on level 10 (and the others have not been on drugs). the difference that feeling these other manifestations of love, it was just so much more gratifying to feel love.
at some point, maybe like 4, the one of my sisters friends who did not trip with us went back to the car to get a few hours of shut eye.
the rest of us kept dancing and dancing and dancing (and eating clementines) until the sun began to rise around 7.
at this point i went to the assigne meeting place to see if my sisters friend had come for any reason. on the walk there i started reflecting on the night and how good it was to be here with my sister and all the other people sharing this remarkable experience. i was out in the middle of the woods having the craziest tribal experience of my life. i could feel the love gushing out of my veins and i was oh so happy to be alive. ::u may think: isnt it bad to need drugs to have all of this, it surely will lead to addiction.:: well i suppose that that is a good point, but i think that i am well aware of the fact that drugs only offer you a glimpse of what is available through hard work and dedication. i think that all of the extatic sensations i was having can be had in a longer and more permanent way through meditation and spiritual practice, but here lies the power and benefit of drugs. thy can offer you a glimpse at what is available. they can give you the temporary insight you need to move foward with ur life. let us take my opinion as an assumption for the sake of argument: that through drugs you can take a small look at God, the infinite, enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, etc. i think that it is definetly worth looking than not looking, while keeping the perspective clear. i know, believe me i know there are dangers in taking drugs, the most imminent being addiction. BUT, but if they are done carfully, in the proper state of mind, with the right people, than they can offer a momentary glimpse of what the universe is really like. and honestly, i think that for most people, those few glimpses throughout their lives would be enough. i think that most people spend alot of their lives lacking the humility and perspective that is gained by an awe inspiring encounter with the infinite, but i will continue this latter, let me get back to my story.
so im walking to the meeting spot, overwhelmed by love and a feeling of understanding, and i got the notion to go all the way to the car, which was a little ways away, to wake her up if she wasnt at the meeting spot. the sun was about to come out and we were going to go down to the river and enjoy the day after the night, and i didnt think she would want to miss that. so i was feeling lots of love for my sister, and lots of love for her friend, and i was happily strolling towards her. AND THEN
like a flash it hit me, a moment of inspiration, a revelation of sorts. i attribute it to being in an enlightened/loving (they are one and the same as far as i can tell) state of mind, where the mind is at its most powerful, and the future and the past become apparant. and so i got a flash into the future and i saw my life play out in front of me. for some time i have been unclear as to the direction that my life will take. i have been in debate about wheter i want to be a scholar or a wanderer or god knows what. i love school, but i also love freedom. i dont know, it was a hot mess in my brain. and then the flash hit and it was clear as to what i am going to do. i have decided to go to graduate school in egypt when i finish up ithaca. i will study islamic studies or somehting of that nature, and i will be able to master my arabic, which is the one thing that i was sure of. i want to lead the life of a scholar and family man. my head has always been happy when buried in a book, and i am now clear that it would be foolish to abandon this path. espially when i seem so well suited for it. i know this may not seem like a surprise to some of you, but it certainly was to me: i saw myself at the center of a large family of my own, completee with wife children nieces nephews godsons and god daughers. i saw myself not unlike my father, happily sitting at the head of a long table with all my beloved people. there is certainly a relativly long span of time between now and then, but it is good to know where you are goin.
so anyway i continued towards the car and woke up the poor girl from her unconfortable nap. despite her grogginess i started chattering away at her the thing i had discovered. we talked and talked and talked and talked until we finally ran into the rest of the gang, at which point we found a quiet spot in the woods by the river where we spent the whole day just talking and chilling and smoking joints.
so i would like to continue the discusion on the power and use of drugs. i was just saying that i think that getting a few glimpses of the divine throughout ones life is enough to generate the humility and submission that i find to be essential to a happy life. (let me just say here on a side note, that in my limited experience i find that not all drugs serve this purpose. in cigarets for example i have found no trancendant value. it seems that psychadelics/halucinogens are the best for the purpose of opening the reducing valve). i think that we all have the desire to transecend our ordinary existance, which is why religion has been the center our lives up until the very recent past. we all want some sort of indication that this isnt it, that there is something more to the ordinary ups and downs of life. this is the reason taht we use drugs, and im not talking about 'hard' drugs, im talking about alcohol, and ganga, and hashish, and mushrooms, and peyotes and everything else. we just want, even for just one night to be in a different state of mind, to be rid of the triffles that hold us down. one of the problems, id say, is taht we are usually unaware of our own desire to transcend so that we do not do it properly. we smoke every day, or we drink ourselves into oblivion, or we do so many drugs that we dont know what hit us. it is impossible to reach the ultimate enlightenment through drugs, only to to open small windowns temporarily, and if we abuse them, the windows get smaller and smaller until eventually they dont even open up and we are left with only frustration. another problem with drugs, is that they have a negative effect on our mind as a survival mechanism, the mechanism basically doesnt work for a while. it is hard to imagine looking for food and shelter in the state of mind i was in, in fact it seemed the only thing possible was blissful contemplation of the beauty of life. this is great once in a while, but if done regularly, it is easy to see why drug addicts have such a low life expectancy.
there is really so much more that i could say about this matter, but that is the subject of books, not blogs, i think, although i am expecting some responses. this is certainly a subject that everyone must have some sort of opinion on, one way or the other. so i look foward to hearing from you. and i just want to reassure you that i have a sound head on my shoulders and that i dont forsee myself slipping into any of the pitfalls of drugs anytime soon.
many of you might be asking why i would write something like this, as it can only make people think less of me. first of all you may not be thiknking that at all, but if you are i would like to tell you my reasons. first of all i wanted to lay it all on the line so to speak, to share my thoughts and experiences with the people i love. i am neither ashamed of myself, nor do i think i have done anything wrong. secondly i would like to present another image of drugs. i wish that we could get over the whole D.A.R.E. attitude about drugs and have some real discussions. for example, i cannot remember the last (or first) time that an authority type figure had a conversation with me explaining the positive aspects of drugs. i cant remember the last time that sombody talked to me about the fact that people have been using drugs for religious and ceremonial purposes since the begining of time. nobody ever told me that drugs arnt bad, but abusing them is. i can find an analagous situation with the consumption of alcohol in the USA as compared to europe. in the US drinking is super taboo and its really not ok to drink if ur under 21, and as a concequence everyone drinks themselves retarded, from a very young age. being so taboo, drinking itself becomes an event. in europe on the contrary, drinking is very acceptable even from a young age. the drinking age is technically 18, but in reality there is very little regulation, i can send my 13 year old brother to buy beer for me (not that i would EVER do that ;), or would i?) children learn to drink in their homes and as a concequence when they drink socially it is much more under control and less extreme. drinking is just something you do while socializing, its not the whole point of a night. so perhaps if we educated our youngsters about the real nature of drugs, instead of painting a comically simplified and highly distorted picture of it, we would not have people using drugs in such reckless manners. perhaps we could ever learn to use them in a more profitable way, generating love, happiness and community. i know that i will certainly be one to try in that envisioned time when i got some childrens of my own.
finally i would like to recomend two essays by Aldous Huxley on the relationships between drugs, spirituality, and other such things. they usually come together, they are called The Doors of Perception & Heavan and Hell.
peace and love
emi
so first of all, my sister has come to visit again, she arrived the 12 and she leaves in a few days. it has been great as always to have her around. her visit has coincided with a vacation in my arabic classes so we have been able to hang out alot while she was here. she came to visit with a few friends and my friend owen was supposed to come visit, but my man didnt check his passport till the checked his bags, only to find out it had expired. i can tell you dont travel much OG, common. so yea, my sister was here with her friends and weve been doing tha do. tomorrow we are going to go to the beach, although its going to be COLD, but it should be madd fun. were going to do some hammock camping.
on the ithaca front, it seems that me nate and shane have found a house, i wont elaborate too much, since we have not signed a lease yet, although we do have a verbal agreement. it is a nice, WELL MAINTAINED house overlooking the lake, on a nice piece of property, yet still close enough to get to and from school.
so the now that the chit chat is out of the way, i will get to the heart of my story. this last weekend there was a festival, it is called El Festival del Dragon. originally it was started in the 70's by a few english families as a celebration of the coming of spring. it has evolved alot from its early beginings, now it consists of a 3 week festival in the mountains outside granada. the beauty of this festival is that it is completely guerrilla, there is not charge to get it, very little central organization, and no one really making any money off it. people bring their tents and set up little food stands, music tents, a few concerts, etc. you just walk around and there are tents everywhere, and people just chilling out without any method to the mayhem. it is quite remarkable when i compare this to the Grassroots Festival in Ithaca this summer, where it costs like $75 to go in for the weekend and you had an assigned plot and food was madd expensive. compare that to the dragon where everyone was just throwing up their tents where ever they could (for some reason people were pitching them strait up on rocks). the food was remarkably cheap considering where we were. there were people selling jewlery in stands, beer out of buckets of ice, people just waving around huge nuggets of marijuana, it was the ill spring festival. on the other hand, the festival does have its negative aspects, i feel bad for the people who live in the area who have to listen to hardcore drum and bass from like 9pm to 9am for at least 2 weeks, it can be heard a good distance away. there is also the matter of garbage and feces littering the area. part of the lack of organization is the lack of appropriate waste facilities, there were very few trash cans, and they were FULL in no time, and there were a few latrines, but in general it was just a free for all. from what i understand, the organizers pay the govt to clean up afterwards, presumably from their profits from concessions, but the river definetly looked a little mangy afterwords.
so anyway, this has all been a bit of a long wind up for me to tell you about my own experience with my sister and her two friends (although we met up with some other cats while we were there).
the main night of the whole festival when everyone comes and it is just crazy was friday night. this is the night that we planned on attending. we arrived on saturday afternoon at around 6 and walked around the grounds, saw the sights and got our bearings, as it is quite unlikely that we would be able to see anything at night. so from the moment we arrived people just started piling into it. by like 9 it was a complete grid lock as the whole festival grounds only had one enterance, and at a certain point the max capacity was reached but cars kept piling in, it was quite satisfying to be there and parked and chilling.so let me cut to the chase. the thing that makes this festival most remarkable is that you will never be in a place with so many people doing so many drugs at the same time. it is insane, i think that 100% were doing drugs of some sort including alchohol and marijuana, but furthermore, at least 95% were doing 'harder' drugs. you could literally see a food stand that said: WINE 1 euro, BEER 1 euro, SHOTS 2 euros, ACID 10 euros, SPEED 20 euros, etc. me and cas and one of her friends decided that we were going to do some MDMA, the active ingredient in exstacy, although i felt it was safer as it didnt have all the other things they throw in it, and we got it from a friend.
so i realize at this point im going out there, i am well aware of all the people i send this blog to, and i am even more aware of the impressions that they may be making of me as they read this. i would beg you all to read with an open mind and not judge too hastily as there is much more to this than the recreational use of drugs (which i think has some merit in its own right, when not abused, as with all things).
so basically we started taking it around 9 pm and started feeling it at like 10, we spent the next 7-8 hours dancing like maniacs to the heartbeat of drum and bass. this is both the first time that i have done MDMA and the first time that i have consumed 'hard' drugs in a rave setting. how can i describe the feeling that you get when you are packed into a room just being swayed back and forth by the DJ. you can feel the energy in the room swaying back and forth, like an entity of its own. acording to Aldous Huxley, the primary function of the mind is to reduce the amount of sensory input we recieve down to what is necessary to our survival as an animal. a reducing valve, he calls it, functioning as a survival mechanism. so essentially the brain is capable of recieving a great deal more input, which is mostly useless for our survival as a species. so when we take drugs, the brain is no longer functioning as a reducing valve and is opened to new sensorum. in other words, i think that the sensations/halucinations/connections we feel while we are on drugs, are not made up in our mind, we simply cannot percieve them in our normal state of conciousness. its not so much that we are imagining things is that we are percieving other sensory mediums. like in the crowd, you could feel yourself connected to everyone else. this is similar to the experience of sitting in a drum circle (without drugs) when you start to feel the rhythm and everyone is syncing and you just stop thinking and feel the connection. i think that religious ceremonies (if the people are true beleivers) are able to generate this collective thing that everyone plugs their mind into. in a book i read about witches it refered to this as everyones aura vibrating at the same frequency, and what better to do this than music. in fact i think that it is the most effective unifier of minds. i used to think that when all the druggies would get together and just listen to crazy techno music on madd drugs that it was no good, but now i can see the reason that they do it. and while, there were many people there who i think were over doing it on the drug consumption because they were REALLY out of it, it was amazing to feel that connection with such a large number of souls. you could almost feel it breathe in and out. you could feel the crowd waiting as if on the edge of a precipice for the climax in the music. quite remarkable and enlightening really.
so i spent the whole night mostly with my sister and her friends and we were having a jolly good time. for those of you who know me well, you know that my sister is my best friend and that we are extremely close. i cannot tell you the joy of taking drugs with her. i always felt so remarkably close to her. when we would come in contact it was crazy, it was like i could feel madd quantities of electricity passing through us. i am quite certain that this was a manifestation of love that we cannot percieve in our everyday state. i felt so safe. oh how limited these silly words are in all of this. if there were more degrees of love i would say i was definetly feeling level 10 love (out of 10). this is not the only time i have been on level 10 (and the others have not been on drugs). the difference that feeling these other manifestations of love, it was just so much more gratifying to feel love.at some point, maybe like 4, the one of my sisters friends who did not trip with us went back to the car to get a few hours of shut eye.
the rest of us kept dancing and dancing and dancing (and eating clementines) until the sun began to rise around 7.
at this point i went to the assigne meeting place to see if my sisters friend had come for any reason. on the walk there i started reflecting on the night and how good it was to be here with my sister and all the other people sharing this remarkable experience. i was out in the middle of the woods having the craziest tribal experience of my life. i could feel the love gushing out of my veins and i was oh so happy to be alive. ::u may think: isnt it bad to need drugs to have all of this, it surely will lead to addiction.:: well i suppose that that is a good point, but i think that i am well aware of the fact that drugs only offer you a glimpse of what is available through hard work and dedication. i think that all of the extatic sensations i was having can be had in a longer and more permanent way through meditation and spiritual practice, but here lies the power and benefit of drugs. thy can offer you a glimpse at what is available. they can give you the temporary insight you need to move foward with ur life. let us take my opinion as an assumption for the sake of argument: that through drugs you can take a small look at God, the infinite, enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, etc. i think that it is definetly worth looking than not looking, while keeping the perspective clear. i know, believe me i know there are dangers in taking drugs, the most imminent being addiction. BUT, but if they are done carfully, in the proper state of mind, with the right people, than they can offer a momentary glimpse of what the universe is really like. and honestly, i think that for most people, those few glimpses throughout their lives would be enough. i think that most people spend alot of their lives lacking the humility and perspective that is gained by an awe inspiring encounter with the infinite, but i will continue this latter, let me get back to my story.
so im walking to the meeting spot, overwhelmed by love and a feeling of understanding, and i got the notion to go all the way to the car, which was a little ways away, to wake her up if she wasnt at the meeting spot. the sun was about to come out and we were going to go down to the river and enjoy the day after the night, and i didnt think she would want to miss that. so i was feeling lots of love for my sister, and lots of love for her friend, and i was happily strolling towards her. AND THEN
like a flash it hit me, a moment of inspiration, a revelation of sorts. i attribute it to being in an enlightened/loving (they are one and the same as far as i can tell) state of mind, where the mind is at its most powerful, and the future and the past become apparant. and so i got a flash into the future and i saw my life play out in front of me. for some time i have been unclear as to the direction that my life will take. i have been in debate about wheter i want to be a scholar or a wanderer or god knows what. i love school, but i also love freedom. i dont know, it was a hot mess in my brain. and then the flash hit and it was clear as to what i am going to do. i have decided to go to graduate school in egypt when i finish up ithaca. i will study islamic studies or somehting of that nature, and i will be able to master my arabic, which is the one thing that i was sure of. i want to lead the life of a scholar and family man. my head has always been happy when buried in a book, and i am now clear that it would be foolish to abandon this path. espially when i seem so well suited for it. i know this may not seem like a surprise to some of you, but it certainly was to me: i saw myself at the center of a large family of my own, completee with wife children nieces nephews godsons and god daughers. i saw myself not unlike my father, happily sitting at the head of a long table with all my beloved people. there is certainly a relativly long span of time between now and then, but it is good to know where you are goin.
so anyway i continued towards the car and woke up the poor girl from her unconfortable nap. despite her grogginess i started chattering away at her the thing i had discovered. we talked and talked and talked and talked until we finally ran into the rest of the gang, at which point we found a quiet spot in the woods by the river where we spent the whole day just talking and chilling and smoking joints.
so i would like to continue the discusion on the power and use of drugs. i was just saying that i think that getting a few glimpses of the divine throughout ones life is enough to generate the humility and submission that i find to be essential to a happy life. (let me just say here on a side note, that in my limited experience i find that not all drugs serve this purpose. in cigarets for example i have found no trancendant value. it seems that psychadelics/halucinogens are the best for the purpose of opening the reducing valve). i think that we all have the desire to transecend our ordinary existance, which is why religion has been the center our lives up until the very recent past. we all want some sort of indication that this isnt it, that there is something more to the ordinary ups and downs of life. this is the reason taht we use drugs, and im not talking about 'hard' drugs, im talking about alcohol, and ganga, and hashish, and mushrooms, and peyotes and everything else. we just want, even for just one night to be in a different state of mind, to be rid of the triffles that hold us down. one of the problems, id say, is taht we are usually unaware of our own desire to transcend so that we do not do it properly. we smoke every day, or we drink ourselves into oblivion, or we do so many drugs that we dont know what hit us. it is impossible to reach the ultimate enlightenment through drugs, only to to open small windowns temporarily, and if we abuse them, the windows get smaller and smaller until eventually they dont even open up and we are left with only frustration. another problem with drugs, is that they have a negative effect on our mind as a survival mechanism, the mechanism basically doesnt work for a while. it is hard to imagine looking for food and shelter in the state of mind i was in, in fact it seemed the only thing possible was blissful contemplation of the beauty of life. this is great once in a while, but if done regularly, it is easy to see why drug addicts have such a low life expectancy.
there is really so much more that i could say about this matter, but that is the subject of books, not blogs, i think, although i am expecting some responses. this is certainly a subject that everyone must have some sort of opinion on, one way or the other. so i look foward to hearing from you. and i just want to reassure you that i have a sound head on my shoulders and that i dont forsee myself slipping into any of the pitfalls of drugs anytime soon.
many of you might be asking why i would write something like this, as it can only make people think less of me. first of all you may not be thiknking that at all, but if you are i would like to tell you my reasons. first of all i wanted to lay it all on the line so to speak, to share my thoughts and experiences with the people i love. i am neither ashamed of myself, nor do i think i have done anything wrong. secondly i would like to present another image of drugs. i wish that we could get over the whole D.A.R.E. attitude about drugs and have some real discussions. for example, i cannot remember the last (or first) time that an authority type figure had a conversation with me explaining the positive aspects of drugs. i cant remember the last time that sombody talked to me about the fact that people have been using drugs for religious and ceremonial purposes since the begining of time. nobody ever told me that drugs arnt bad, but abusing them is. i can find an analagous situation with the consumption of alcohol in the USA as compared to europe. in the US drinking is super taboo and its really not ok to drink if ur under 21, and as a concequence everyone drinks themselves retarded, from a very young age. being so taboo, drinking itself becomes an event. in europe on the contrary, drinking is very acceptable even from a young age. the drinking age is technically 18, but in reality there is very little regulation, i can send my 13 year old brother to buy beer for me (not that i would EVER do that ;), or would i?) children learn to drink in their homes and as a concequence when they drink socially it is much more under control and less extreme. drinking is just something you do while socializing, its not the whole point of a night. so perhaps if we educated our youngsters about the real nature of drugs, instead of painting a comically simplified and highly distorted picture of it, we would not have people using drugs in such reckless manners. perhaps we could ever learn to use them in a more profitable way, generating love, happiness and community. i know that i will certainly be one to try in that envisioned time when i got some childrens of my own.
finally i would like to recomend two essays by Aldous Huxley on the relationships between drugs, spirituality, and other such things. they usually come together, they are called The Doors of Perception & Heavan and Hell.
peace and love
emi
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Morroco
so me and antonio took a quick weekend trip to morroco. when i first came to spain i was looking foward to visiting morroco a great many times to work on my arabic. as things have panned out, my arabic is going a little slower than i anticipated so i have not been able to take advantage of it as i would have liked to. plus it seemed like everyone where we went spoke spanish anyway. we went to a town called chawen. this is a picturesc little town tucked under a large rocky mountain. i wish i had some pictures to show you, but the whole town is painted light blue. the streets, the walls, the inside of peoples houses, everything, which givees it the effect of being in a cloud or something. the town is a bit of a tourist attraction because of its many skilled craftsmen, its beautiful appearance reminicint of the good ol days, the natural beauty of the surrounding areas. this is most directly felt by every single male, aged 12 and above asks you if you want to be hash. and i mean every male, its quite absurd, i dont know how they all make a living doing so because first they are trying to rip you off, and even if they riped off every tourist, they would only get ripped off once, and i dont know what the other 500 'vendors' would do.
the natural beauty of this place is breathtaking, i really wish i had some pictures. as i said, the town is on the skirts of a mountain, and the surrounding areas are filled with the farms and pastureland, etc, required to maintain thee town. there is a natrual spring ocming out of the mountain so the water there is extremely pure. there is also a crystal lake in the mountains. it is a relatively short walk to get there and it is an enlivening sight.
we spent the weekend hanging out in town and living the good life so to speak. 3 fat meals a day, plenty of sleep and no real partying makes chawen a great place to go to rcuperate ones strength. i bought a bunch of stuff for my house in ithaca next year, a few rugs and tapestries and such.
sorry its so brief, but i got to run
more to come
peace
the natural beauty of this place is breathtaking, i really wish i had some pictures. as i said, the town is on the skirts of a mountain, and the surrounding areas are filled with the farms and pastureland, etc, required to maintain thee town. there is a natrual spring ocming out of the mountain so the water there is extremely pure. there is also a crystal lake in the mountains. it is a relatively short walk to get there and it is an enlivening sight.
we spent the weekend hanging out in town and living the good life so to speak. 3 fat meals a day, plenty of sleep and no real partying makes chawen a great place to go to rcuperate ones strength. i bought a bunch of stuff for my house in ithaca next year, a few rugs and tapestries and such.
sorry its so brief, but i got to run
more to come
peace
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Sierra Nevada
hello everyone i hope all is going well out there.
so one of the sweetest features about being heavan, i mean granada, is that you can go skiing and swing in the mediteranean in the same day. there is a sick ski resort less than an hour away. its pretty amazing when you consider the fact that it was well over 65 degrees today and i was dying of heat. so on monday silvio cut school and we decided to go up to the ski spot. this is the second time we were going. the first time we went it was snowing pretty much the whole day and it was cloudy and relatively cold, although the fresh snow was rather lovely. this time was just the opposite, i discoevered what sierra nevada is so famous for. it was blazing sunshine the entire day. it was quite a new experience for me to be snowboarding and not be at least sort of cold. on monday i was soo hot. i was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a vest, and a shell and i had to keep opening up my jacket.
there was surprisingly large amount of people considering that we went on a monday, but since we're the only ski resort within like 300 miles it is not difficult to understand that there would be alot of people. on the last run down that shit was INSANE, everyone was going home and it was almost as crowded as the NYC subway leaving a yankee game. i was basically scared to move because you didnt know what was going to happen below you, and you never knew when some psycho snowboarder (although i am a snowboarder i generally dislike any other snowboarders. they just ride like [explicit] maniacs) is going to come flying down and impale you.
me and silvio spent most of the day in the upper slopes of the mountain where it is a little colder and there are alot less people. it was really fun, we found some spots that werent so crowded and were able to dick around. silvio convinced me to hit up the terrain park with him which was cool, since i didnt really fall, i was able to throw up some indy grabs (basically i would just slap my hand on the board and call it a grab). i must say that US snowboarders shit on spanish ones when it comes to tricks, i didnt see anyone to anything better than a 360, which silvio can do, soo.
the highlight of the day for me came fairly early on. it was probably our third ride down and my confidence was starting to climb. i hadnt fallen on the first time we went, so the last fall on a snowboard came when i busted my knee two years ago. so i was starting to feel good, and i was heading down a familiar slope pretty fast. i was cutting back and forth, and on one toe-edge cut, where im leaning foward with my board mostly perpendicular to the slope, i then hit a slight bump and lost my balance at which point my edge hit, got stuck, and i started levitating into the air. as i floating face up through the air, i got such a lovely view of the sun and the perfectly clear sky, it was so beautiful. this was immediatly before i came plumeting down directly onto my lower back about 8 or 9 feet down the slope. the first sound i heard was "AHH, joder tio, que ostia te has puesto" (ahh, damn son, you busted your ass). apparently i was below the skylift which prompted me to attempt to laugh it off, which wasnt so hard, as it was one of those blows that manifests itself through laughter. concious of the fact that i was liable to get trampeled by some psycho or novice, i attempted, rather poorly to get up. i was able to drag myself off the the side where i had to chill for a while. in the end i was able to enjoy the rest of the day, be that with a mortal fear of falling and reagravating my tender coccyx (which i inevitably did). so now i sit at home with my ass area (mostly my lower back) in a pretty bad state, but with a great story to tell, a worthy tradeoff.
the website for the ski spot said that it would be springtime conditions on the slopes, and i didnt quite understand what this meant until after lunch. at this point it was so hot that the snow had melted past the point of icyness, and on to the point of slushiness. behind fresh powder, this is arguably the best snow for skiing on as it gives into the edges with absolute ease. the major drawback is that you CANNOT fall for risk of getting completely soaked by the slush.
chitty chitty bang bang.
peace out
so one of the sweetest features about being heavan, i mean granada, is that you can go skiing and swing in the mediteranean in the same day. there is a sick ski resort less than an hour away. its pretty amazing when you consider the fact that it was well over 65 degrees today and i was dying of heat. so on monday silvio cut school and we decided to go up to the ski spot. this is the second time we were going. the first time we went it was snowing pretty much the whole day and it was cloudy and relatively cold, although the fresh snow was rather lovely. this time was just the opposite, i discoevered what sierra nevada is so famous for. it was blazing sunshine the entire day. it was quite a new experience for me to be snowboarding and not be at least sort of cold. on monday i was soo hot. i was wearing a long sleeve shirt, a vest, and a shell and i had to keep opening up my jacket.
there was surprisingly large amount of people considering that we went on a monday, but since we're the only ski resort within like 300 miles it is not difficult to understand that there would be alot of people. on the last run down that shit was INSANE, everyone was going home and it was almost as crowded as the NYC subway leaving a yankee game. i was basically scared to move because you didnt know what was going to happen below you, and you never knew when some psycho snowboarder (although i am a snowboarder i generally dislike any other snowboarders. they just ride like [explicit] maniacs) is going to come flying down and impale you.
me and silvio spent most of the day in the upper slopes of the mountain where it is a little colder and there are alot less people. it was really fun, we found some spots that werent so crowded and were able to dick around. silvio convinced me to hit up the terrain park with him which was cool, since i didnt really fall, i was able to throw up some indy grabs (basically i would just slap my hand on the board and call it a grab). i must say that US snowboarders shit on spanish ones when it comes to tricks, i didnt see anyone to anything better than a 360, which silvio can do, soo.
the highlight of the day for me came fairly early on. it was probably our third ride down and my confidence was starting to climb. i hadnt fallen on the first time we went, so the last fall on a snowboard came when i busted my knee two years ago. so i was starting to feel good, and i was heading down a familiar slope pretty fast. i was cutting back and forth, and on one toe-edge cut, where im leaning foward with my board mostly perpendicular to the slope, i then hit a slight bump and lost my balance at which point my edge hit, got stuck, and i started levitating into the air. as i floating face up through the air, i got such a lovely view of the sun and the perfectly clear sky, it was so beautiful. this was immediatly before i came plumeting down directly onto my lower back about 8 or 9 feet down the slope. the first sound i heard was "AHH, joder tio, que ostia te has puesto" (ahh, damn son, you busted your ass). apparently i was below the skylift which prompted me to attempt to laugh it off, which wasnt so hard, as it was one of those blows that manifests itself through laughter. concious of the fact that i was liable to get trampeled by some psycho or novice, i attempted, rather poorly to get up. i was able to drag myself off the the side where i had to chill for a while. in the end i was able to enjoy the rest of the day, be that with a mortal fear of falling and reagravating my tender coccyx (which i inevitably did). so now i sit at home with my ass area (mostly my lower back) in a pretty bad state, but with a great story to tell, a worthy tradeoff.
the website for the ski spot said that it would be springtime conditions on the slopes, and i didnt quite understand what this meant until after lunch. at this point it was so hot that the snow had melted past the point of icyness, and on to the point of slushiness. behind fresh powder, this is arguably the best snow for skiing on as it gives into the edges with absolute ease. the major drawback is that you CANNOT fall for risk of getting completely soaked by the slush.
chitty chitty bang bang.
peace out
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
CARNAVAL
so this weekend was the carnaval in cadiz. cadiz is the only city in continental spain that has a carnaval (the other being tenerife in the canary islands which is supposed to be second only to rios) so everyone from all over the country makes their way there every year. i know for a fact that there were over 40 buses from malaga so i can only imagine how many people came total. the cadiz carnaval is famous for its comic chirigotas (groups of men that tell a story in song, usually a funny one), so every year there is a contest that lasts for a month to select the best ones, and the friday before carnaval the winners are chosen. we arrived on friday around sunset and we had some dinner and went out about the city. we walked around a few times saw the hoards of people starting the party a night early. at around 2 we made our way home (home being the car) and tried to make ourselves confortable, no easy task, but we managed a few hours with the help of a couple shots of rum and a duby snack. the next day, saturday was the motherload, the legendary carnaval. from the moment i awoke i saw people pass by the 'house' in full costume aparel. we spent the day laying around in the lovely sun resting up for what was sure to be a long night. after eating a few delicious sandwiches for dinner we went to start to get ready for a memorable evening. i was dressed up as two things. on my body i was wearing all black and my black cloak over it, and on my head i had my hair in the pigtails. when you put the two together you have my costume. thats right you guessed it, a gay vampire. so we went into the city and in a nutshell it was fucking insane. i would have taken some pictures but i didnt thiink i would be in any state to be responsible for myself, let alone an expensive camera. i was right. it seemed like the motto of the multitude was lets see how much alcohol we can pound in one night. and i combined that to my personal motto: when in rome. so a+b= me drinking alot. i did not however make an ass of myself which i am proud to say. after starting the party between 9-10 at about 4 or 5 in the morning i was starting to be in bad shape. i decided to make for the crib and i got half way there before i decided that i could no longer walk strait and that i had to sit down. i promptly sat my ass down and called in reinforcements. my friend betsy was kind enough to come fetch me and lead me off the the car where i passed out before hitting the bottom of the trunk. i woke up the next morning with proverbial ax in the back of my head. i had a wicked hangover that thankfully for me and all the people i was suppsed to drive home wore off after a hardy breakfast, several liters of water, and a duby snack. we sat in the sun a few hours charging up tha bateries and then we undertook the 3.5 hour drive home. a productive weekend in general.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Barcelona Round II
this last weekend i went to barcelona for the second time. i again stayed with my terrific new friends lucas and hilaria, who were more than gracious in letting me kick it at their crib for a few days. on the surface it seemed as though this may not have been the best planned trip, i decided on it in the last minute, and im not exactly a plan ahead kind of guy either. so, when i get to barcelona i find out that, first, lucas and hilaria are studying for exams, my friend anastacia is going to berlin for the weekend, my other friend santi is going to granada for the weekend, and the last, ima, who i havnt met yet, never returned my email, so i was basically in barcelona on my own in a sense, although i was well cared for by my friends. on the surface this may seem like an ill omened trip, but in reality, it was a resounding success. i felt like less of a tourist, and i wasnt so rushed to see the sights. i spent alot my days reading and cooking for my busy hosts in an effort to make my visit a help more than a burden. i whipped up some recipes that i had been meaning to utilize, moms typical fideo soup, as well as a stuffed tomoatoes and peppers recipes that i havnt been able to try for our lack of an oven in granada.
aside from cooking i did my share of walking around and such, i saw two good movies, coincidentally both with gael garcia bernal in them, BABEL and LA CIENCIA DE LOS SUEñOS. babel is really a good an interesting movie, emotionally touching, as well as morally and spiritually stimulating. ciencia de los sueños is more of a trippy kind of movie, i guess it would be more aptly described as a 'film'. in general i enjoyed them both.
basically the reason that i went to barcelona was to watch the FC Barcelona soccer game on sunday. now this is probably more relevant to those of you who either like soccer or even better are barça aficionados. so basically it went like this, the game was at 7 so at like 530 i started to make my way to the legendary Camp Nou (New Field in Catalan). i didnt have tickets but my friend assured me that i could probably find cheaper than regulation tickets once i got there. so i got off the subway along with the initial hoards that like to get there early. i was in front of the stadium at 6 and in my antsineess to get inside, i bought the first ticket i could get my hands on. i definetly could have gotten a better price, but this was quite irrelivant to me at the moment. the whole time i had basically been alternating between shivering with emotion and just grinning or laughing out loud. my ticket was in the upper tier in the corner. so i initially went to that section to and from there i went directly to midfield and i went to the highest point of the stadium, the proverbial 'nose bleed' section. i basically stood up there and just savored the sweet smell of the air in the Camp Nou. it is a sensation i have dreamed of for years. and the dreams really cannot compare to the actuality of watching the sunset over the mountains beyond the stadium, of watching the 120,000 (thats max capacity, there were probably more like 70-80 at this game) loving fans file in. as the game was about to start i moved down a few rows so i was sitting at midfield in the lower half of the upper tier. soccer is defiently a sport where having a good perspective makes a big difference, you wouldnt for example want to sit behind a goal because you cant see shit, you also dont really want to sit in the first row. i think the ideal is the middle tier, but the upper tier is by no means bad. the game started and i really cant describe the emotions that were taking place in my heart at that time. it is the satisfaction of crossing something of your lifes to do list, only problem is i added at least a dozen other visits to it as a consequence. as for the game itself, there is no way to describe how well the team played so u will just have to see for yourself. these are the highlights fromt he game and i just watched them again and they are sick, CLICK HERE.
after the game i made my way out of the stadium and joined the hoard of people that were just walking down the middle of the street stopping traffic in all directions. i eventually made my way into the subway station and along with many many other people waited for the train to come. apparently there were some people that thought they were slick dodo and went to the precious train stop so when the train arrived it was completely packed. their plan backfired on them when nobody considered the fact that the train was full as a good enough reason not to get on it, so joining in the mob mentality we redoubled the density of people in the train, and all those poeple who though they were smart were suddenly crushed into the back of the train. haha. that was probably one of the best nights of my life, one i will certainly never forget. the thrill and glory of watching your team tear it up like that. from there i went to the movies to watch babel. in general a memeorable evening.
well my friends, the time has come to bounce up outa here. so i will leave you . peace.
aside from cooking i did my share of walking around and such, i saw two good movies, coincidentally both with gael garcia bernal in them, BABEL and LA CIENCIA DE LOS SUEñOS. babel is really a good an interesting movie, emotionally touching, as well as morally and spiritually stimulating. ciencia de los sueños is more of a trippy kind of movie, i guess it would be more aptly described as a 'film'. in general i enjoyed them both.
basically the reason that i went to barcelona was to watch the FC Barcelona soccer game on sunday. now this is probably more relevant to those of you who either like soccer or even better are barça aficionados. so basically it went like this, the game was at 7 so at like 530 i started to make my way to the legendary Camp Nou (New Field in Catalan). i didnt have tickets but my friend assured me that i could probably find cheaper than regulation tickets once i got there. so i got off the subway along with the initial hoards that like to get there early. i was in front of the stadium at 6 and in my antsineess to get inside, i bought the first ticket i could get my hands on. i definetly could have gotten a better price, but this was quite irrelivant to me at the moment. the whole time i had basically been alternating between shivering with emotion and just grinning or laughing out loud. my ticket was in the upper tier in the corner. so i initially went to that section to and from there i went directly to midfield and i went to the highest point of the stadium, the proverbial 'nose bleed' section. i basically stood up there and just savored the sweet smell of the air in the Camp Nou. it is a sensation i have dreamed of for years. and the dreams really cannot compare to the actuality of watching the sunset over the mountains beyond the stadium, of watching the 120,000 (thats max capacity, there were probably more like 70-80 at this game) loving fans file in. as the game was about to start i moved down a few rows so i was sitting at midfield in the lower half of the upper tier. soccer is defiently a sport where having a good perspective makes a big difference, you wouldnt for example want to sit behind a goal because you cant see shit, you also dont really want to sit in the first row. i think the ideal is the middle tier, but the upper tier is by no means bad. the game started and i really cant describe the emotions that were taking place in my heart at that time. it is the satisfaction of crossing something of your lifes to do list, only problem is i added at least a dozen other visits to it as a consequence. as for the game itself, there is no way to describe how well the team played so u will just have to see for yourself. these are the highlights fromt he game and i just watched them again and they are sick, CLICK HERE.
after the game i made my way out of the stadium and joined the hoard of people that were just walking down the middle of the street stopping traffic in all directions. i eventually made my way into the subway station and along with many many other people waited for the train to come. apparently there were some people that thought they were slick dodo and went to the precious train stop so when the train arrived it was completely packed. their plan backfired on them when nobody considered the fact that the train was full as a good enough reason not to get on it, so joining in the mob mentality we redoubled the density of people in the train, and all those poeple who though they were smart were suddenly crushed into the back of the train. haha. that was probably one of the best nights of my life, one i will certainly never forget. the thrill and glory of watching your team tear it up like that. from there i went to the movies to watch babel. in general a memeorable evening.
well my friends, the time has come to bounce up outa here. so i will leave you . peace.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Arabic 101
the truth is that i am writing about this because i am trying to write another entry that i think is better, but its not flowing at the moment, so i figured id give you a bit of an update on my life, so if you dont care stop reading here.
thank you to those still reading, i appreciate it.
so my arabic classes are finally starting to take off, and its a bit of a whirlwind. man oh man am i in for a trip. as some of you may know, my current goal in life, aside from those permanent goals such as living a good, happy, and meaningful life, is to learn arabic and french before i am 25. as i am 20 know going on 21 i think that i am in a good position. i have recently had a great stroke of good luck, what do you know, because arabic is now being taught at ithaca college, so that i will be able to continue studying for the next two years while i finish up school. so my plan is to take one arabic and one french class per semester for the remainder of my stay at ithaca. i think this will be enough to get me in position for the next move which is moving to an arabic speaking country for at least a year or as long as it takes to get it down pat. i am optimistic. initially i was thinking of morrocco or egypt. then i was informed that these countries have very strong dialects, which is not ideal for the learning of classical arabic. so i figured that i would end up going to syria lebanon or jordan. and then the other day i met this dude who is also studying arabic and he went to cairo last year and he said that the dialect is definetly managable and that it is a really good place to go. i have more of an impulse to go to egypt than any of the aforementioned countries so i found this to be good news. if anyone has any thoughts, opinions, information on the subject this would be the place to say something. so now all i need to do is make that happen, prospects are looking good as always.
on the home front, it looks like im going to barcelona this weekend, hopefully ill be able to watch the first game of ronaldinho, eto'o, and messi are all back and playing together. it would be a momentous occasion. i am quite looking foward to going to barcelona, i have a few friends there, from new ones to old childhood ones, and like i said earlier, it is a happenin city.
my friend KelLee from ithaca has taken a semester aborad here and i have been able to hang out with her and a few friends from her program, so rest assured folks, i wont be forgeting my english. in truth it is good see her, and it makes me look foward even more to returning to ithaca, while at the same time im looking foward to spending every second i can here. life is good. i have also made a new friend from scotland, and his name is Scot, no trouble remembering that name. he is quite a well traveled individual, as his dad works for chevron so we have accidentally developed in a similar way.
long story short: Im OUT.
peace folks good talk
thank you to those still reading, i appreciate it.
so my arabic classes are finally starting to take off, and its a bit of a whirlwind. man oh man am i in for a trip. as some of you may know, my current goal in life, aside from those permanent goals such as living a good, happy, and meaningful life, is to learn arabic and french before i am 25. as i am 20 know going on 21 i think that i am in a good position. i have recently had a great stroke of good luck, what do you know, because arabic is now being taught at ithaca college, so that i will be able to continue studying for the next two years while i finish up school. so my plan is to take one arabic and one french class per semester for the remainder of my stay at ithaca. i think this will be enough to get me in position for the next move which is moving to an arabic speaking country for at least a year or as long as it takes to get it down pat. i am optimistic. initially i was thinking of morrocco or egypt. then i was informed that these countries have very strong dialects, which is not ideal for the learning of classical arabic. so i figured that i would end up going to syria lebanon or jordan. and then the other day i met this dude who is also studying arabic and he went to cairo last year and he said that the dialect is definetly managable and that it is a really good place to go. i have more of an impulse to go to egypt than any of the aforementioned countries so i found this to be good news. if anyone has any thoughts, opinions, information on the subject this would be the place to say something. so now all i need to do is make that happen, prospects are looking good as always.
on the home front, it looks like im going to barcelona this weekend, hopefully ill be able to watch the first game of ronaldinho, eto'o, and messi are all back and playing together. it would be a momentous occasion. i am quite looking foward to going to barcelona, i have a few friends there, from new ones to old childhood ones, and like i said earlier, it is a happenin city.
my friend KelLee from ithaca has taken a semester aborad here and i have been able to hang out with her and a few friends from her program, so rest assured folks, i wont be forgeting my english. in truth it is good see her, and it makes me look foward even more to returning to ithaca, while at the same time im looking foward to spending every second i can here. life is good. i have also made a new friend from scotland, and his name is Scot, no trouble remembering that name. he is quite a well traveled individual, as his dad works for chevron so we have accidentally developed in a similar way.
long story short: Im OUT.
peace folks good talk
Monday, January 29, 2007
Feeling Down and Out?
this came to me as i was about to fall asleep last night, in that twilight of consiousness where you are more receptive to the messages that the universe sends. i wanted to write about it then, but as i didnt have a pen at hand, i went to bed, and now i can only hope to recapture the epiphone i had and recreate the wisdom that dawned upon me.
i think that there comes a time in the life of a human being where his temporal self sabotages his immortal self. now what exactly am i talking about. good question, im not quite sure myself, but lets see. let us asume that our imortal self consists of our soul, our temporal self of our body, the tool with which we can make something unreal real, in which we can turn a thought into an action which affects the physical world; and our mind can slip back and forth depending on what it is focused on. so our imortal self is what compels us to be good people, to do things that we know are right, and prevents us from doing bad things. our conscience while manifested in the mind, originates in our soul. the temporal self is essentially free to do whatever in this transient life, and is only directed by the mind. now the mind is really the key character in this play, because the mind is the bridge between this world and the next, and it can either be functioning or not, depending on how we choose to use it. i figure that all internal battles take place in the mind as it decides in which direction to go, and in the end it can only emerge victorious (and by victorious i mean as manifested in happiness and satisfaction with ones life) when we follow the guidance of our conscience and our heart (read: soul). i should note that while i speak in an abstract 'you' or 'we' or 'our' in reality i am speaking of my personal experience, dont ask me why i dont just use 'i' but i make a policy of not looking back too much so i just keep writing.
so the whole point of this if i can wrap my mental fingers around it is that while i genuinly believe that in the bottom all people are good, and kind and have the potential to be loving, they all have the capacity to fulfill theyre wildest dreams. sometimes our ego (temporal self) prevents the body from acting in a way that is consistent with the goals of our immortal self, which are essentially manifesting all the virtues that are innate to our humanity. basically im trying to say that there are times when you strait up dont feel like you are acting in the right way (there is no absolute right in practice, only in principle. in different cases the same right principles can lead you to act in diametrically opposite ways, but that is the nature of the beast) but you just cant seem to get out of the funk youre in, you energy level is low, and you just not that hyped on life. you can go through the days in a sort of daze without taking the time to stop and smell the roses. i think that essentially there is only one cause for all of this, that is not living in the present moment. now i dont that its not ok to plan ahead or think of the past, but the key is once again as my anonymous comentator said, 'to rise to the moment at every moment.' now this is easy when we are in a state of grace, where we are exited about life and things seem to be going our way. but then things turn around a little bit, and there is a subtle change in our way of being. it usually seems imperceptable at first, but next thing you know, you not making the most out of your days, your sort of going through the motions, etc.
in my case, i dont quite know what happened, but i know that i sort of slowed down, i wasnt doing as much in a day as i could have. i think alot of it has to do with the fact that im on my own in a way that i never have been before. the only thing between me and a lump of dirt is my self determination, i have to classes to attend, no 9-5 job, no hunger pangs, no kids to support. i basically have no outside source of motivation, and slowly, gradually, almost imperceptably i started to slow down, to dick around on the internet more, to watch a little tv, to go out for lunch, play soccer less, check my fantasy NBA team too often, to get a little lax on my study habbits. and then suddenly i didnt know why i wasnt feeling so satisfied with my self. its like i got a little lazier without even realizing it. its one of those changes that can only be appreciated over a large span of time, because day to day its imperceptable. in the end it comes down to self discipline on a moment to moment basis, about maximizing your breathing moments. i have never been submitted to a rigorous sort of discipline, but at the same time i have never been without outside timekeepers. and it is our self discipline that can set us free, if we cannot do the things we say we want to do then we are slaves to our own apathy, to our own sloth. and so i was, stuck in a place i didnt want to be, with my body having developed habits that my heart and soul didnt agree with.
so what do we do to get out of this. i think that as i just said, self discipline can set us free. it all comes down to personal integrity, doing what we said we were going to do. and not just in a vast metephorical metaphysical sense, but also in a minute day to day, hour to hour, sense. its like when you break a drug addiction, you dont think about how hard it is going to be to quit for 30 years, you think about it on a day to day basis. and if that is too hard, on a hour to hour, minute to minute scale. and so our discipline will set us free, and our word will be the guide. think and talk (to yourself is fine) about what you want to do, and then figure out what needs to happen on a minite to minute basis, and then figure out what you need to stop doing that you were doing while you were wasting time. i mean, even when i wasnt doing the things i wanted to do i was still wasting time doing something, and i have to stop doing that something, or do it quicker, or less often in order to make time for the things i do want to do. in a nutshell, make a daily to-do list, and make it as detailed and strict as you need until you can break the bad habits that you seem to be stuck in. youd be amazed at the things you can acomplish when you dont give yourself time to be lazy. its highly unlikely that you are going to collapse from fatigue, but if you do, then you need to tone it down a little, until you get used to the rhythm. i would also be sure structure this around a healthy lifestyle because nothing is more unpleasant than having to deal with you suffering body.
may dad always used to tell me when i had homeword to do, or mow the lawn, or any other thing that i thought i was forced to do: 'you can either do it or you can suffer'. and the older i get the more i see the wisdom in this. whenever you have something that you 'have' to do, it makes it alot better (your life will be more pleasant, you will be happier and you will have more time) if you choose to do it, rather than be forced with it. procrastination sucks, there is nothing worse (i suppose there are some things that are worse) than having that unique nagging sensation that burns in the back of your mind which arises from the knowledge that you should be doing something else. on the other hand there is nothing better (are there things that are better?) than that sensation of knowing that you are on top of everything and that you are in control of your life.
am i crazy? what do u think? please let me know
peace and love friends family and beyond
emiliano
i think that there comes a time in the life of a human being where his temporal self sabotages his immortal self. now what exactly am i talking about. good question, im not quite sure myself, but lets see. let us asume that our imortal self consists of our soul, our temporal self of our body, the tool with which we can make something unreal real, in which we can turn a thought into an action which affects the physical world; and our mind can slip back and forth depending on what it is focused on. so our imortal self is what compels us to be good people, to do things that we know are right, and prevents us from doing bad things. our conscience while manifested in the mind, originates in our soul. the temporal self is essentially free to do whatever in this transient life, and is only directed by the mind. now the mind is really the key character in this play, because the mind is the bridge between this world and the next, and it can either be functioning or not, depending on how we choose to use it. i figure that all internal battles take place in the mind as it decides in which direction to go, and in the end it can only emerge victorious (and by victorious i mean as manifested in happiness and satisfaction with ones life) when we follow the guidance of our conscience and our heart (read: soul). i should note that while i speak in an abstract 'you' or 'we' or 'our' in reality i am speaking of my personal experience, dont ask me why i dont just use 'i' but i make a policy of not looking back too much so i just keep writing.
so the whole point of this if i can wrap my mental fingers around it is that while i genuinly believe that in the bottom all people are good, and kind and have the potential to be loving, they all have the capacity to fulfill theyre wildest dreams. sometimes our ego (temporal self) prevents the body from acting in a way that is consistent with the goals of our immortal self, which are essentially manifesting all the virtues that are innate to our humanity. basically im trying to say that there are times when you strait up dont feel like you are acting in the right way (there is no absolute right in practice, only in principle. in different cases the same right principles can lead you to act in diametrically opposite ways, but that is the nature of the beast) but you just cant seem to get out of the funk youre in, you energy level is low, and you just not that hyped on life. you can go through the days in a sort of daze without taking the time to stop and smell the roses. i think that essentially there is only one cause for all of this, that is not living in the present moment. now i dont that its not ok to plan ahead or think of the past, but the key is once again as my anonymous comentator said, 'to rise to the moment at every moment.' now this is easy when we are in a state of grace, where we are exited about life and things seem to be going our way. but then things turn around a little bit, and there is a subtle change in our way of being. it usually seems imperceptable at first, but next thing you know, you not making the most out of your days, your sort of going through the motions, etc.
in my case, i dont quite know what happened, but i know that i sort of slowed down, i wasnt doing as much in a day as i could have. i think alot of it has to do with the fact that im on my own in a way that i never have been before. the only thing between me and a lump of dirt is my self determination, i have to classes to attend, no 9-5 job, no hunger pangs, no kids to support. i basically have no outside source of motivation, and slowly, gradually, almost imperceptably i started to slow down, to dick around on the internet more, to watch a little tv, to go out for lunch, play soccer less, check my fantasy NBA team too often, to get a little lax on my study habbits. and then suddenly i didnt know why i wasnt feeling so satisfied with my self. its like i got a little lazier without even realizing it. its one of those changes that can only be appreciated over a large span of time, because day to day its imperceptable. in the end it comes down to self discipline on a moment to moment basis, about maximizing your breathing moments. i have never been submitted to a rigorous sort of discipline, but at the same time i have never been without outside timekeepers. and it is our self discipline that can set us free, if we cannot do the things we say we want to do then we are slaves to our own apathy, to our own sloth. and so i was, stuck in a place i didnt want to be, with my body having developed habits that my heart and soul didnt agree with.
so what do we do to get out of this. i think that as i just said, self discipline can set us free. it all comes down to personal integrity, doing what we said we were going to do. and not just in a vast metephorical metaphysical sense, but also in a minute day to day, hour to hour, sense. its like when you break a drug addiction, you dont think about how hard it is going to be to quit for 30 years, you think about it on a day to day basis. and if that is too hard, on a hour to hour, minute to minute scale. and so our discipline will set us free, and our word will be the guide. think and talk (to yourself is fine) about what you want to do, and then figure out what needs to happen on a minite to minute basis, and then figure out what you need to stop doing that you were doing while you were wasting time. i mean, even when i wasnt doing the things i wanted to do i was still wasting time doing something, and i have to stop doing that something, or do it quicker, or less often in order to make time for the things i do want to do. in a nutshell, make a daily to-do list, and make it as detailed and strict as you need until you can break the bad habits that you seem to be stuck in. youd be amazed at the things you can acomplish when you dont give yourself time to be lazy. its highly unlikely that you are going to collapse from fatigue, but if you do, then you need to tone it down a little, until you get used to the rhythm. i would also be sure structure this around a healthy lifestyle because nothing is more unpleasant than having to deal with you suffering body.
may dad always used to tell me when i had homeword to do, or mow the lawn, or any other thing that i thought i was forced to do: 'you can either do it or you can suffer'. and the older i get the more i see the wisdom in this. whenever you have something that you 'have' to do, it makes it alot better (your life will be more pleasant, you will be happier and you will have more time) if you choose to do it, rather than be forced with it. procrastination sucks, there is nothing worse (i suppose there are some things that are worse) than having that unique nagging sensation that burns in the back of your mind which arises from the knowledge that you should be doing something else. on the other hand there is nothing better (are there things that are better?) than that sensation of knowing that you are on top of everything and that you are in control of your life.
am i crazy? what do u think? please let me know
peace and love friends family and beyond
emiliano
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Cas Came to Visit, and I Passed Out
As many of you may know my sister (Maya) Casilda came to visit when i got back from Barcelona. it was really good to see her (you in her case). but anyway, just go give note to the events that happened while she was here. first of all we had a sweet party. for those of you who have facebook you can see pictures of it on her profile. there was live music dancing drinking and all sorts of merrymaking. unfortunetly we eventually had to stop when the neighbors came to complain at 3 am. we tried to invite them but they wouldnt listen. so yea generally great evening.
other than that we just did alot of chilling and stuff. whenever she comes to visit everyone seems to come around alot more, which is quite nice. so there was alot more social life in the house than there has been lately. it did conflict a bit with my attempts to get back in a routine of studying and not vacationing in general.
well just to share a personal comical story. friday was 'el dia de San Canuto' which is the spanish equivalent of 420 and for those of you who dont know what that is, it is essentially the national marijuana smoking holiday. so i was invited to a concert/celebration in Malaga by the woman with whom i intern (see Cannabainternship). i should note that i hadnt smoked in a few weeks so my tolerance was reduced to nil. i should also remind you all of the potency of the cannabis in the region. so me and carlitos made our way there and to as we appoached we smoked a joint (in reality i took one hit but it was more than enough). sure enough it took us like 90 minutes to find a parking spot. so we parked and within two blocks or walding we had already lost the car, so we had to head back find it mark it on the map and set out again. we got to the destination just in time for the juggeling act to start. it was quite a gathering, from the sky it must have looked like a regular forest fire. we proceeded to watch the show and i took a few hits of joints that were passed to me. knowing my currents state of intolerance i did my best (relatively speaking) to keep my consumption down to a minimum. after the juggeling we went to get some food as i felt my blood sugar droping. we walked around the same block for half an hour before finally settling on a bar. upon returning there was a concert about to start, quite a good percussion group i might add. at this point i smoked some of another joint and tried to settle into the mood. within a few minutes i was starting to feel little dizzy. i went to lean against a palm tree. i remember a strong vibration from the gas generator next to the palm tree that was powering the whole shibaz.
and then i woke up. i opened my eyes to see a large group of people standing around me asking me if i was OK. i looked over to see i was about 20 feet from the palm tree and i had no idea how i had gotten there. from what was told to me i stumbled there as i feinted. its not over either. after i had layed there a little while i sat up and took my time to recover. after an hour of so we started to make our way home. we judged it would be a good idea to stop somewhere to get some coffee. keeping with the trend of the night we stopped at 3 rest stops without finding anything and at the third there was a police man waving some flags in there air. i figured ' damn, a detour, this is really going to slow us down, and i folowed the direction i though he was indicating' at his point carlitos mumbled something which i didnt understand. within a few moments there were sirens blaring behind me and the police pulled me over. apparently the 'detour' was in fact an alcohol checkpoint which i so casually drove away from. needless to say my behavior was suspicious. as i had wisely not drank anything that night, for fear of creating a symbiotic intoxication with the marijuana, i passed the breathalizer test with flying colors. i was still searched and they confiscated all the wonderful chronic i had been given at the celebration, some real once in a lifetime jewels. but in the end i was glad they let me go. we finally arrived about 4 hours later than we planned to sleep with great satisfaction.
now, many of the people who read this, probably over the age of 30 may be saying to themselves, 'what is up with this kid, one day hes all spiritual and shit, the next hes passing out from drug overdoses.' and to you i say, you have a very good point, but i assure you that i did not smoke very much on the relative scale, and that i only reccount the story to you for its comic value. i would venture to say that those who know me well would be impressed on the other hand by my current lifestyle despite how many drugs and other hedonist recreational activities i have available to me, with nothing but self discipline to deterr me.
just to give you an update as far as what ive been doing lately. i started yoga classes last week and i have already payed for 3 months in advance as a way of ensuring my commitment.i have now settled into an athletic schedule that suits me quite well, 3 days of soccer per week complimented by two days of yoga and two days of rest, in order to keep all the articulations operating at optimal levels. arabic classes start back up this week, finally. it has been a long recess and i am quite anxious to start back up. i am happy to say that i have purchased my tickets to india this summer and i will be there from may 29 until july 4. i have read several books lately, some of them extremely thought provoking and i wonder if you have read any of them.
The Perennial Philosophy by Aldoux Huxley- this book is basically an anthology of all the great mystics from most religious traditions. huxley has attmpted to compile his notion of what the core of these religions are, which are shared by all spiritual practices. honestly i found this book to be phenomenal, although its a bit heavy reading. it is certainly written from a european perspective, but with great admiration and understanding of the eastern spiritual traditions. as i have lately been in search of spiritual teachings i must say that aldous has served as an excellent teacher and i was more than happy to learn from him. i recommend to all who feel that all religions are essentially different fingers pointing at the same object, and who seek personal spiritual guidance.
Brida by Paulo Coehlo- another terrific book by the almost mythical author of 'the alchemist'. apparantly this is a true story which adds quite a bit of allure to it. this one chronicals Brida O'Fern's quest in becoming a witch and finding true love. as with all coehlo's books (at least the ones i have read) this book provides useful and practical moral and spiritual advice. his writing style is simple and easy to read. the thing i like most about his books are that they really make me dream of what is possible, and believe taht it can come true, and better yet that it is in my hands.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl- this is a psychological analysis of the life inside a prison camp seamlessly woven into the authors account of his own experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. the narrative is both heart breaking and inspiring, devastating and hopeful. he essentially tries to find what it is that allows some people to live and others to die while in these camps and how it is that one can find a point to keep living when life all around appears to be worthless. he also includes an introduction into his own school of psychotherapy, logotherapy, or meaning therapy. his theory, and a damn good one at that, is taht what makes our lives worth living is finding a meaning in it. we can make up any meaning we like, but if we have one and we beleive in it we can survive even the harshest torture. his own experiences are the stronges validation for his ideas.
Muhammad: Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong- this is obviously a biography of muhammads life. i find it to be quite enlightening as she treats him fairly and objectively without the spite that usually taints westerners perspective or the adoration taht taints muslims. she gives him credit as a prophet, and leader, statesman, and essentially and admirable and good man. she goes to great effort to make us understand him within his cultural and historical framework without falling back on our own moral absolutism. she also makes a point of comparing the muslim and chirstian worlds on a level playing field. this is must read for those who are interested in islam, but especially for those who have a negative idea of the religion and its prophet. it should correct many of the notions we may have ingrained in us by centuries of ingorance and bad publicity.
at the moment i am reading two very good books which i also highly recomment. first of all War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. they dont call it one of the greatest books ever for nothing, im about a quarter of the way into it and it just keeps getting better. you should however set aside about a month to read this book as it is ginormous. the other book is A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. i find this book to be quite interesting but i have always had an affinity for mathematics and the natural sciences. it is an excellent choice for those who are interested in modern physics, but dont have time to become a physicist. he makes abstact mathematical concepts readily available in laymans terms and there is actually a fair amount of humor in it believe it or not.
well thats all for now.
goodluck and godspeed mateys
love
em
other than that we just did alot of chilling and stuff. whenever she comes to visit everyone seems to come around alot more, which is quite nice. so there was alot more social life in the house than there has been lately. it did conflict a bit with my attempts to get back in a routine of studying and not vacationing in general.
well just to share a personal comical story. friday was 'el dia de San Canuto' which is the spanish equivalent of 420 and for those of you who dont know what that is, it is essentially the national marijuana smoking holiday. so i was invited to a concert/celebration in Malaga by the woman with whom i intern (see Cannabainternship). i should note that i hadnt smoked in a few weeks so my tolerance was reduced to nil. i should also remind you all of the potency of the cannabis in the region. so me and carlitos made our way there and to as we appoached we smoked a joint (in reality i took one hit but it was more than enough). sure enough it took us like 90 minutes to find a parking spot. so we parked and within two blocks or walding we had already lost the car, so we had to head back find it mark it on the map and set out again. we got to the destination just in time for the juggeling act to start. it was quite a gathering, from the sky it must have looked like a regular forest fire. we proceeded to watch the show and i took a few hits of joints that were passed to me. knowing my currents state of intolerance i did my best (relatively speaking) to keep my consumption down to a minimum. after the juggeling we went to get some food as i felt my blood sugar droping. we walked around the same block for half an hour before finally settling on a bar. upon returning there was a concert about to start, quite a good percussion group i might add. at this point i smoked some of another joint and tried to settle into the mood. within a few minutes i was starting to feel little dizzy. i went to lean against a palm tree. i remember a strong vibration from the gas generator next to the palm tree that was powering the whole shibaz.
and then i woke up. i opened my eyes to see a large group of people standing around me asking me if i was OK. i looked over to see i was about 20 feet from the palm tree and i had no idea how i had gotten there. from what was told to me i stumbled there as i feinted. its not over either. after i had layed there a little while i sat up and took my time to recover. after an hour of so we started to make our way home. we judged it would be a good idea to stop somewhere to get some coffee. keeping with the trend of the night we stopped at 3 rest stops without finding anything and at the third there was a police man waving some flags in there air. i figured ' damn, a detour, this is really going to slow us down, and i folowed the direction i though he was indicating' at his point carlitos mumbled something which i didnt understand. within a few moments there were sirens blaring behind me and the police pulled me over. apparently the 'detour' was in fact an alcohol checkpoint which i so casually drove away from. needless to say my behavior was suspicious. as i had wisely not drank anything that night, for fear of creating a symbiotic intoxication with the marijuana, i passed the breathalizer test with flying colors. i was still searched and they confiscated all the wonderful chronic i had been given at the celebration, some real once in a lifetime jewels. but in the end i was glad they let me go. we finally arrived about 4 hours later than we planned to sleep with great satisfaction.
now, many of the people who read this, probably over the age of 30 may be saying to themselves, 'what is up with this kid, one day hes all spiritual and shit, the next hes passing out from drug overdoses.' and to you i say, you have a very good point, but i assure you that i did not smoke very much on the relative scale, and that i only reccount the story to you for its comic value. i would venture to say that those who know me well would be impressed on the other hand by my current lifestyle despite how many drugs and other hedonist recreational activities i have available to me, with nothing but self discipline to deterr me.
just to give you an update as far as what ive been doing lately. i started yoga classes last week and i have already payed for 3 months in advance as a way of ensuring my commitment.i have now settled into an athletic schedule that suits me quite well, 3 days of soccer per week complimented by two days of yoga and two days of rest, in order to keep all the articulations operating at optimal levels. arabic classes start back up this week, finally. it has been a long recess and i am quite anxious to start back up. i am happy to say that i have purchased my tickets to india this summer and i will be there from may 29 until july 4. i have read several books lately, some of them extremely thought provoking and i wonder if you have read any of them.
The Perennial Philosophy by Aldoux Huxley- this book is basically an anthology of all the great mystics from most religious traditions. huxley has attmpted to compile his notion of what the core of these religions are, which are shared by all spiritual practices. honestly i found this book to be phenomenal, although its a bit heavy reading. it is certainly written from a european perspective, but with great admiration and understanding of the eastern spiritual traditions. as i have lately been in search of spiritual teachings i must say that aldous has served as an excellent teacher and i was more than happy to learn from him. i recommend to all who feel that all religions are essentially different fingers pointing at the same object, and who seek personal spiritual guidance.
Brida by Paulo Coehlo- another terrific book by the almost mythical author of 'the alchemist'. apparantly this is a true story which adds quite a bit of allure to it. this one chronicals Brida O'Fern's quest in becoming a witch and finding true love. as with all coehlo's books (at least the ones i have read) this book provides useful and practical moral and spiritual advice. his writing style is simple and easy to read. the thing i like most about his books are that they really make me dream of what is possible, and believe taht it can come true, and better yet that it is in my hands.
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl- this is a psychological analysis of the life inside a prison camp seamlessly woven into the authors account of his own experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. the narrative is both heart breaking and inspiring, devastating and hopeful. he essentially tries to find what it is that allows some people to live and others to die while in these camps and how it is that one can find a point to keep living when life all around appears to be worthless. he also includes an introduction into his own school of psychotherapy, logotherapy, or meaning therapy. his theory, and a damn good one at that, is taht what makes our lives worth living is finding a meaning in it. we can make up any meaning we like, but if we have one and we beleive in it we can survive even the harshest torture. his own experiences are the stronges validation for his ideas.
Muhammad: Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong- this is obviously a biography of muhammads life. i find it to be quite enlightening as she treats him fairly and objectively without the spite that usually taints westerners perspective or the adoration taht taints muslims. she gives him credit as a prophet, and leader, statesman, and essentially and admirable and good man. she goes to great effort to make us understand him within his cultural and historical framework without falling back on our own moral absolutism. she also makes a point of comparing the muslim and chirstian worlds on a level playing field. this is must read for those who are interested in islam, but especially for those who have a negative idea of the religion and its prophet. it should correct many of the notions we may have ingrained in us by centuries of ingorance and bad publicity.
at the moment i am reading two very good books which i also highly recomment. first of all War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. they dont call it one of the greatest books ever for nothing, im about a quarter of the way into it and it just keeps getting better. you should however set aside about a month to read this book as it is ginormous. the other book is A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. i find this book to be quite interesting but i have always had an affinity for mathematics and the natural sciences. it is an excellent choice for those who are interested in modern physics, but dont have time to become a physicist. he makes abstact mathematical concepts readily available in laymans terms and there is actually a fair amount of humor in it believe it or not.
well thats all for now.
goodluck and godspeed mateys
love
em
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Cordoba and Barcelona
its been a long absence. the last month has been a bit of a whirlwind and i've been stuck in a bit of a doldrum. ive been meaning to write for a while, but lo and behold, i havnt. this is a way of me to get back into the swing of things, get my motivation back, and with it my sense of purpose without which life becomes meaningless. sounds a little dramatic, but its really not, just a matter of post holiday hangover so to speak. but the long and short of it is im back until im gone again, which hopefully wont be anytime soon.
so i finally did a little traveling around spain. in andalucia i visited malaga (which is pretty wack, it is way too touristy and developed and has lost any magic that it may have had) and i also visited cordoba which was a much more pleasant experience. the central attraction in cordoba is the mosque/cathedral (originally a mosque and converteted, like the vast majority of the mosques in spain). this building is quite phenomenal in its architecture and its magic which i must say it preserves quite well.
and now for some pictures
this is the mosque from the outside. it is huge, as all the mosques and cathedrals are here in spain.
this is the inside. the whole thing , which must be a few acres at least is completely adorned with these double arches. it just keeps going and going and going. it is quite a magical effect taht really cant be captured in a picture. the sensation of..of.. i guess i dont quite know how to describe it, but is something like awe and admiration for the mathematical genious of the architecture. the alternating red and white are not painted on either they are actually alternating bricks and stone which adds to the awe i think, when you consider the amount of arches that had to be made (probably close to a thousand)
here is another picture of the mosque with a statue of jesus to christianize it.
aside from the mosque cordoba still retains alot of its character from its andalusian days. the city was famous for being perhaps the most advanced center of culture and learning (not to mention religious tolerance) in its day. some well known scholars are the muslim averoes and the jewish maimonides (as well as the roman seneca, although his day was long before it was a muslim capital)
these are statues of maimonides and seneca
aside form andalucia, i also visited barcelona. now barcelona is a happening city. i mean this place is a very cosmopolitan place with people form the four corners of the globe, but at the same time it doesnt have that overwhelming sensation you get in new york or mexico or any other 'big' city. it has a population of about 1.5 million and doesnt really have too many tall buildings. the city itself is extremely beautiful it is full of gothic and modernist archtecture, which im sure i would appreciate alot more if i knew anything about archtecture, but nonthe less it was a great visit and i look foward to going back to watch Barcelona (the soccer team) play. i stayed with a friend from granada who had an appartment right in the center of the city and we were able to walk everywhere. i would say the coolest part of the short trip was visiting the 'Temple de la Sagrada Familia' this is a very very large church which is still in the process of being built. it was designed by the modernist master antoni gaudi. the city itself is in a way gaudi's showroom and his influence is felt far beyond the reaches of architecture. the church is quite simply magnificent. i mean i dont knwo how to describe it, its just so freiking kool looking. it almost looks like a drip sand castle. i guess the pictures will speak more thant he words.
here is a picture as i approached it on the street.
this is a picture of the facade of 'the passion'
this is the nativity front.
i few pictures of the sculptures on the outside.
these are a few pictures of the inside of the church.
like i said the church is not finished. currently their are 8 towers built. and supposedly they are going to add a bunch more and one of them is supposedly almost double the size. the inside is going to be inlaid with colors and all the wondows will have stained glass. in short i think it will be truly breathtaking when it is finally finished, i only hope that i am alive to see it.
here is a picture i found on the internet of what its going to look like when its done. ont he left is the current state of the building and ont he right is what its supposed to look lioke when its finished. needless to say they still have a long way to go, but so far so good.
good to talk to you again. ill be around
so i finally did a little traveling around spain. in andalucia i visited malaga (which is pretty wack, it is way too touristy and developed and has lost any magic that it may have had) and i also visited cordoba which was a much more pleasant experience. the central attraction in cordoba is the mosque/cathedral (originally a mosque and converteted, like the vast majority of the mosques in spain). this building is quite phenomenal in its architecture and its magic which i must say it preserves quite well.
and now for some pictures
this is the mosque from the outside. it is huge, as all the mosques and cathedrals are here in spain.
this is the inside. the whole thing , which must be a few acres at least is completely adorned with these double arches. it just keeps going and going and going. it is quite a magical effect taht really cant be captured in a picture. the sensation of..of.. i guess i dont quite know how to describe it, but is something like awe and admiration for the mathematical genious of the architecture. the alternating red and white are not painted on either they are actually alternating bricks and stone which adds to the awe i think, when you consider the amount of arches that had to be made (probably close to a thousand)
here is another picture of the mosque with a statue of jesus to christianize it.aside from the mosque cordoba still retains alot of its character from its andalusian days. the city was famous for being perhaps the most advanced center of culture and learning (not to mention religious tolerance) in its day. some well known scholars are the muslim averoes and the jewish maimonides (as well as the roman seneca, although his day was long before it was a muslim capital)
these are statues of maimonides and seneca
aside form andalucia, i also visited barcelona. now barcelona is a happening city. i mean this place is a very cosmopolitan place with people form the four corners of the globe, but at the same time it doesnt have that overwhelming sensation you get in new york or mexico or any other 'big' city. it has a population of about 1.5 million and doesnt really have too many tall buildings. the city itself is extremely beautiful it is full of gothic and modernist archtecture, which im sure i would appreciate alot more if i knew anything about archtecture, but nonthe less it was a great visit and i look foward to going back to watch Barcelona (the soccer team) play. i stayed with a friend from granada who had an appartment right in the center of the city and we were able to walk everywhere. i would say the coolest part of the short trip was visiting the 'Temple de la Sagrada Familia' this is a very very large church which is still in the process of being built. it was designed by the modernist master antoni gaudi. the city itself is in a way gaudi's showroom and his influence is felt far beyond the reaches of architecture. the church is quite simply magnificent. i mean i dont knwo how to describe it, its just so freiking kool looking. it almost looks like a drip sand castle. i guess the pictures will speak more thant he words.
here is a picture as i approached it on the street.
this is a picture of the facade of 'the passion'
this is the nativity front.
i few pictures of the sculptures on the outside.
these are a few pictures of the inside of the church.
like i said the church is not finished. currently their are 8 towers built. and supposedly they are going to add a bunch more and one of them is supposedly almost double the size. the inside is going to be inlaid with colors and all the wondows will have stained glass. in short i think it will be truly breathtaking when it is finally finished, i only hope that i am alive to see it.
here is a picture i found on the internet of what its going to look like when its done. ont he left is the current state of the building and ont he right is what its supposed to look lioke when its finished. needless to say they still have a long way to go, but so far so good.good to talk to you again. ill be around
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Stars Falling From the Sky
last night was the annual Geminid meteor shower. this is the first meteor shower that i have ever seen and i must say that if you ever have a chance to see a meteor shower, drop absolutely everything to do it. it was perhaps the most breathtaking thing i have ever seen. i saw more shooting stars in the first 20 minutes than i had seen in my entire life. i went to a hill above granada, that also happens to have a breathtaking view (although not of the same magnitude) of the alhambra and the city of granada. last night i felt as though i was in the most priviledged position in the world. i was laying on a blanket staring up at the starts watching a galactic 4th of july, and if i looked down a little i had the best view ever of the alhambra by night with those spectacular night lights giving it the impression of a floating castle, a little to the left and there was the entire city of granada layed out. that view is really strait out of some painting or something, its just too good to be true. it was like what van gogh was trying to capture in starry night, the interplay between the natural lights and the artificial ones, that seem to merge together into a coherant dream. so i lay there from like 11 till like 2 in the morning with my jaw dropped and my tongue hanging out (except for the ocasional shivers, it was pretty damn cold) directly under orions belt with my body perfectly lined up with polaris just watching the sky roll past me. the stars were just falling left and right, it was at least one per minute, and sometimes they would come in bursts, left and right, up and down. it was one of those moments when youre so amazed that you forget to think and you can really just relish the moment, and it doesnt even require years of meditation or practice, you can just sit there like a baby, completely absorbed in the world around you. and it was in this state of mind that the most amazing thing i have ever seen happened: a huge shooting star, but i mean huge. i was laying there and when i saw it i jumped up and yelled in utter amazement. it was so big and burned for so long, i honestly thought it was going to land dead smack in the center of granada, it was like the scene out of some alien movie where the kid sees the space ship land or something. if the sky we see is 180 degrees, and most of the meteorites travel like 5 or 10, this star traveled at least like 30 or 40 across my line of sight. it was so big to, it was much bigger than any star in the sky, or any other celestial object other thant he sun and the moon. truly a special experience. i can only wonder if anyone else saw it. i was surprised to see that no one else had come to the spot where i was at, i guess not many people knew about it, i only found out earlier that night because my dad told me. they should really make this sort of information more available, i mean soemthing like that has to be one of the most amazing experiences a person can have in their lives, and i saw nothing about in the news, granted im not exactly a CNN fiend. i wonder how many people around the world were looking up at the stars at the same time i was, i wonder how many people saw that beautiful star fly through the sky. its almost as if i feel somehow connected to them through that shared experience. these are the sort of things that make you feel so very small, but at the same time like you are part of something so very big, its not a daunting feeling, but rather one of grand artistry. being a man with a relatively sophisticated knowledge of the starts galaxies and the universe (compared to my distant ancestors), and perfectly aware of the physical nature of the phenomenon i was experiencing i must say that i still felt extremely humbled and awed by the power of the divine and cosmic forces that operate outside of our sphere of understanding. i can only imagine the impression something like that would have on someone who had never seen the stars with anything other than their own eyes. i think that it would make you feel as though there were something up there, something really really big up there. i think that there is a certain comfort in feeling small compared to something like that, it makes you feel as though all your worldly concerns just arnt as important as you thought they were. a truly humbling and awe inspiring experience.
so this is a picture taken from the alhambra. if you look at the hills above the houses there is one to the left with the old wall on it, and another one to the right of it, not the one with the green on it and the radio tower, below that. on that hill is where i was laying watching the stars.
peace and love,
em
ps. did anyone else see this meteor shower last night?
so this is a picture taken from the alhambra. if you look at the hills above the houses there is one to the left with the old wall on it, and another one to the right of it, not the one with the green on it and the radio tower, below that. on that hill is where i was laying watching the stars.peace and love,
em
ps. did anyone else see this meteor shower last night?
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Querer Querer
ahoy
so ive been thinking and i want to see what you think. i read that languages are often much wiser not only than the most vulgar that use them, but also than the wisest. it is with this in mind that i started thinking about the spanish verb 'querer'. this word has two meanings: the first is to want, and the second is to love. it has been my intention to explore the relationship between wanting and loving. in spanish their are two words commonly used for love. the first, 'amar', is a passionate, romantic love. this word is used, or i should say i would use it, to describe the intense and mind numbing emotions associated with women that drive me crazy and FC Barcelona (thats right, the soccer team). like i said this love is extremely powerful, and it is often irrational, and always highly addictive, although i would argue that it is never quite satisfying. this is the kind of love that sent the greeks to troy, that makes men fight over women, that incites violence is sports fans, that makes people kill eachother over the fictiotious lines they call countries. i should also say that this love is not negative in itself, and that it is also responsible for love songs aplenty, some of the greatest, and most touching poetry (i say this in a rather detached way, as i have never been one for poetry), and other such romeo and juliet type things. this love can make a person forget themselves (which is a good thing [sometimes]) and do things that they never thought they were capable of. the point is, this kind of love is highly emotional, and when not satisfied can turn to equally potent, much more negative emotions, ie hate, jealousy and misery.
the second word for love in spanish is, as i have already noted, querer. now as i percieve it this word denotes a very different kind of love. it is a much more unconditional love, not dependant upon favorable circumstances. if amar comes from the heart, then querer comes from the soul. this is the equivalent of the greek agape that martin luther king wrote so much about. it is the love of a mother for her child, of a good man for his brother. if amar is a human love, than querer is a godly love. this love, if it is true, will withstand any trial, it cannot be broken and it does not have a negative counter part. in its infinite wisdom the spanish language has irrevocably tied the essense of the divine spirit with the the seemingly transient desires of the human will. could it be that while we struggle our whole lives trying to figure out what we want, that it has we have been saying it all along (for those of us who speak spanish that is. for the rest of you, the lesson is one and the same, and maybe you will want to learn spanish now, and if you live in the US you really should, i mean we are surrounded by spanish speaking peoples, of which there are already 50 million within out boarders). what we really want, although we may not know it, is to love, but not in a emotional up and down kind of way, but rather in the serene peaceful kind of way. in the way that reassures you that the world is in fact good, that god does if fact exist, and that you were in fact meant to be here. could it be that all of our selfish wants and desires, our constant search to find that 'thing' which makes us happy are meant to give way to the no-thing that actually can. if we are possesed by the godlove perhaps we will see that all of those selfish wants and desires are really what is keeping us from being happy, by making us think that there is something outside ourselves that can create true happiness, when if fact true happiness lies in forgetting about ourselves and doing this for the good of others. if you want to love then you will find yourself happy without having to look for it. you will see that god made you happy to begin with and that you have fallen from this by falling passionatly in love with your self. so i tell you as i tell my self, let us love as we want to love, from the bottom of the infinite well that is our soul. if we stop trying to make ourselves happy, and simply do what we know is right at every moment (as my anonymous teacher so wisely put it: rise to the moment at every moment), then we will be happier than we ever thought possible, and we wont poison it by trying not to lose it. and not only that but we will also be blessed with the greatest gift of all, the knowledge that you are an asset to humanity and that you are fulfilling your divine purpose.
well i didnt think that would come out like that when i started, but i like it. sorry for any typos
peace through love
emi
so ive been thinking and i want to see what you think. i read that languages are often much wiser not only than the most vulgar that use them, but also than the wisest. it is with this in mind that i started thinking about the spanish verb 'querer'. this word has two meanings: the first is to want, and the second is to love. it has been my intention to explore the relationship between wanting and loving. in spanish their are two words commonly used for love. the first, 'amar', is a passionate, romantic love. this word is used, or i should say i would use it, to describe the intense and mind numbing emotions associated with women that drive me crazy and FC Barcelona (thats right, the soccer team). like i said this love is extremely powerful, and it is often irrational, and always highly addictive, although i would argue that it is never quite satisfying. this is the kind of love that sent the greeks to troy, that makes men fight over women, that incites violence is sports fans, that makes people kill eachother over the fictiotious lines they call countries. i should also say that this love is not negative in itself, and that it is also responsible for love songs aplenty, some of the greatest, and most touching poetry (i say this in a rather detached way, as i have never been one for poetry), and other such romeo and juliet type things. this love can make a person forget themselves (which is a good thing [sometimes]) and do things that they never thought they were capable of. the point is, this kind of love is highly emotional, and when not satisfied can turn to equally potent, much more negative emotions, ie hate, jealousy and misery.
the second word for love in spanish is, as i have already noted, querer. now as i percieve it this word denotes a very different kind of love. it is a much more unconditional love, not dependant upon favorable circumstances. if amar comes from the heart, then querer comes from the soul. this is the equivalent of the greek agape that martin luther king wrote so much about. it is the love of a mother for her child, of a good man for his brother. if amar is a human love, than querer is a godly love. this love, if it is true, will withstand any trial, it cannot be broken and it does not have a negative counter part. in its infinite wisdom the spanish language has irrevocably tied the essense of the divine spirit with the the seemingly transient desires of the human will. could it be that while we struggle our whole lives trying to figure out what we want, that it has we have been saying it all along (for those of us who speak spanish that is. for the rest of you, the lesson is one and the same, and maybe you will want to learn spanish now, and if you live in the US you really should, i mean we are surrounded by spanish speaking peoples, of which there are already 50 million within out boarders). what we really want, although we may not know it, is to love, but not in a emotional up and down kind of way, but rather in the serene peaceful kind of way. in the way that reassures you that the world is in fact good, that god does if fact exist, and that you were in fact meant to be here. could it be that all of our selfish wants and desires, our constant search to find that 'thing' which makes us happy are meant to give way to the no-thing that actually can. if we are possesed by the godlove perhaps we will see that all of those selfish wants and desires are really what is keeping us from being happy, by making us think that there is something outside ourselves that can create true happiness, when if fact true happiness lies in forgetting about ourselves and doing this for the good of others. if you want to love then you will find yourself happy without having to look for it. you will see that god made you happy to begin with and that you have fallen from this by falling passionatly in love with your self. so i tell you as i tell my self, let us love as we want to love, from the bottom of the infinite well that is our soul. if we stop trying to make ourselves happy, and simply do what we know is right at every moment (as my anonymous teacher so wisely put it: rise to the moment at every moment), then we will be happier than we ever thought possible, and we wont poison it by trying not to lose it. and not only that but we will also be blessed with the greatest gift of all, the knowledge that you are an asset to humanity and that you are fulfilling your divine purpose.
well i didnt think that would come out like that when i started, but i like it. sorry for any typos
peace through love
emi
Friday, December 08, 2006
The Cannabis Cup, Andalucia Style
Its been a while hasnt it. the reason i havnt written in a while is because i didnt have anything to write about during the last couple weeks. i guess thats not wholly true, but i there was nothing that i felt compelled to write about, until now. during those two weeks i was working almost everyday during the morning at my moms friends house, i think i mentioned it. i came home and played soccer during the afternoons. needless to say i was pretty worn out and not doing many 'noteworthy things'. but the good news is that i made a few hundred bucks to keep me from depleting my travel fund, i got some good exercise and i shook up my routine a little. in that time i only read two book and i didnt feel as though i could really write about them, they didnt stimulate my oratory. but i think there is going to be a burst soon because some exiting things have happened, some more are projected, and im reading a book that has got by mind banging on all cylinders. man i feel a little rusty writing right now, i guess my fingers are a little atrofied.
sorry for the pointless introduction
so anyway, the chase that im cutting to: as you all know i have been 'interning' at my mothers friends house, helping her out with this years cannabis crop. as i told you, she is or was the president of the local cannabis cultivation and consumption association known as ARSECA (arseca.org). this past weekend december 1,2,3, was their annual harvest festival and competition (i didnt write until know because it has taken me a while to clear my mind). so i was asked to help out with the collection of samples, and being relatively computer proficient i was responsible for cataloguing all the samples and then tabulating the scores. i should note that my recollection is a bit hazy from all the sampling, but in general i remember everything. i arrived friday night and got right to work designing the score cards and such, and as the first samples started rolling in, i couldnt help but get exited, i mean it was REDICULOUS. i think that many of you readers may not necessarily be cannabis enthusists, but for those of you that are, this was the stoners paridise. i mean im from NY of whatever and there is supposed to be good weed there, but of the 35 total samples, at least 30 were way better than any weed i have seen in nyack, NY, or ithaca, including all the hazes, shmaizes, diesels, weasels, and everything in between. the real festivities started on saturday, although until like 6 we were just sorting out all the samples and dividing them up into anonymous samples. honestly i was way out of my league, i mean, i started smoking 3 days before in order to build up some tolerance, but i didnt stand a chance, i was knocked the fuck out in no time. that night a famous singer called Amparanoia came to perform. it was pretty sick from what i remember, i spent the second half of the concert passed out upstairs. the problem was that this dude made these brownies that were frieking delicious, but didnt hold a match the the cannacarrot cake he made. i mean i tried to restrain myself because with the munchies i had i knew that if i didnt i was going to OD. in fact im still fiending for some carrot cake to this day to satisfy the craving i had to subdue. despite my restraint i think i still ate a little to much, and long story short, i woke up sunday morning in the front seat of my car in quite a daze. it was awesome. haha. since i passed out relatively early i woke up at 8 am, and the club was closed, having nothing to do i spent the morning sitting in any sunny spot i could find, its pretty cold around here these days, but it is divine if ur in the sun. i was able to find some breakfast and i just chilled till about 1 when people started showing up. sudnay was more of the same, the winners were awarded, and the remaining samples were handed out, of which i took home at least a dozen, in case anyone wants to come try them out. i am happy to say that i made it home safe and sound sunday night, despite being more than legally high.
the place where all of this took place is really kool. it is basically a private bar, mostly for memebers, where you can go and drink not overpriced beer, and smoke a joint in a social atmosphere. i think that we need places like this all over. yea right, who doesnt. but seriously, people shouldnt have to hide in fear because they smoke weed, and there should be a place in any major city where they can gather.
thats all for now,
good to be back, and theres more coming
peace
salaam
shalom
salem
love
eM
sorry for the pointless introduction
so anyway, the chase that im cutting to: as you all know i have been 'interning' at my mothers friends house, helping her out with this years cannabis crop. as i told you, she is or was the president of the local cannabis cultivation and consumption association known as ARSECA (arseca.org). this past weekend december 1,2,3, was their annual harvest festival and competition (i didnt write until know because it has taken me a while to clear my mind). so i was asked to help out with the collection of samples, and being relatively computer proficient i was responsible for cataloguing all the samples and then tabulating the scores. i should note that my recollection is a bit hazy from all the sampling, but in general i remember everything. i arrived friday night and got right to work designing the score cards and such, and as the first samples started rolling in, i couldnt help but get exited, i mean it was REDICULOUS. i think that many of you readers may not necessarily be cannabis enthusists, but for those of you that are, this was the stoners paridise. i mean im from NY of whatever and there is supposed to be good weed there, but of the 35 total samples, at least 30 were way better than any weed i have seen in nyack, NY, or ithaca, including all the hazes, shmaizes, diesels, weasels, and everything in between. the real festivities started on saturday, although until like 6 we were just sorting out all the samples and dividing them up into anonymous samples. honestly i was way out of my league, i mean, i started smoking 3 days before in order to build up some tolerance, but i didnt stand a chance, i was knocked the fuck out in no time. that night a famous singer called Amparanoia came to perform. it was pretty sick from what i remember, i spent the second half of the concert passed out upstairs. the problem was that this dude made these brownies that were frieking delicious, but didnt hold a match the the cannacarrot cake he made. i mean i tried to restrain myself because with the munchies i had i knew that if i didnt i was going to OD. in fact im still fiending for some carrot cake to this day to satisfy the craving i had to subdue. despite my restraint i think i still ate a little to much, and long story short, i woke up sunday morning in the front seat of my car in quite a daze. it was awesome. haha. since i passed out relatively early i woke up at 8 am, and the club was closed, having nothing to do i spent the morning sitting in any sunny spot i could find, its pretty cold around here these days, but it is divine if ur in the sun. i was able to find some breakfast and i just chilled till about 1 when people started showing up. sudnay was more of the same, the winners were awarded, and the remaining samples were handed out, of which i took home at least a dozen, in case anyone wants to come try them out. i am happy to say that i made it home safe and sound sunday night, despite being more than legally high.
the place where all of this took place is really kool. it is basically a private bar, mostly for memebers, where you can go and drink not overpriced beer, and smoke a joint in a social atmosphere. i think that we need places like this all over. yea right, who doesnt. but seriously, people shouldnt have to hide in fear because they smoke weed, and there should be a place in any major city where they can gather.
thats all for now,
good to be back, and theres more coming
peace
salaam
shalom
salem
love
eM
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